For this, our second episode of AfterMASH the podcast, we are digging into the cost of higher education. This is specifically inspired by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which capped the maximum federal student loans that students could take out for graduate degrees, and also bifurcated said graduate degrees into two buckets: “professional” and “non-professional”, with a different cap afforded to each.
If you are a doctor, as Zoe is, you were probably acutely aware of the online discourse when the bill first came out by folks outraged that their very-important and very-expensive degrees no longer counted as “professional”. Nurses were one such group. And we definitely agree — the medical system would be nowhere without our nurses!
That being said, we wanted to take some time to dive into what this change actually means, beyond the headline-grabbing “professional” gambit. To start to understand the impacts, we have to first understand the cost of higher education, how it has changed over time, and how it compares between schools, and finally how it is financed. And so, thoroughly researched and finely articulated, Zoe takes us on this exact journey.
Buckle up, kids! This non-federally-capped school is in session! By the end of this episode you will understand why the focus on the “professional” title is maybe missing the point, what ALL of the changes are, and what we think will happen as a result.
The eponymous mash board:
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Thanks for joining us!
Zoe and Jackie
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