ArticleHealth affairs scholar2026
The hidden costs of becoming a nurse: how student debt deepens inequities in the nursing workforce pipeline.
Article in Health affairs scholar, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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Abstract
Recent Department of Education actions implementing graduate loan limits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act excluded nursing from "professional program" designation, creating a policy misalignment that threatens the advanced nursing workforce. Using data from the 2022 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, we demonstrate that educational debt is a structural feature of nursing careers and a barrier to progression into advanced practice and faculty roles. Debt accumulates across nursing careers and disproportionately affects nurses from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, nurses with dependents, and those advancing through associate-degree pathways. We argue that excluding nursing from professional program loan classification misaligns federal borrowing policy with the cumulative structure of nursing education and threatens equitable access to advanced training and the pipelines essential to health system capacity.
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