If you read the legislative update from a couple weeks ago I gave you my initial thoughts about the Department Ed dropping PT from the list of professional programs. I told you you’d be hearing more from me in the near future. I honestly was going to wait till after the new year but I decided it just couldn’t.
You didn’t have to wait long. A good chunk of this blog is basically just my thoughts on PT stuff no one asked for anyways. So here’s all my thoughts on how this affects future PTs, current PTs, and patients.
Future PTs
Just a quick recap. Hopefully you all know by now that PTs were one of the several healthcare providers dropped from the list of professional programs by the Department of Ed. Physician assistants, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, audiologist, and social workers were also dropped from the list. Also notably left out was nursing.
This is not yet official. As of right now this is a proposed change, set to possibly take effect in Summer 2026. If it does go into effect, the determination of professional vs non-professional degree will decide how much federal student aid an individual is able to receive.
Under these new determinations, student PTs would have a lifetime student loan cap of $100,000 and would only be allowed $20,500 per year.
The average debt for DPT graduates is around $150,000. Therefore under these new guidelines, a DPT would be out of reach for many. There’s not a lot of people out there who can make up the difference – in total or in their yearly expenses.
Some people argue this will force schools to lower the cost of education. I don’t see that happening. Lowering the cost likely means lowering teacher salaries, which in that case the teachers will just leave. I think a lot of schools will end up nixing their programs before trying to lower costs. Even if they do try to lower costs I think this will still result in a lot of schools ending or significantly downsizing their programs.
Some people argue that there are always private loans to help make up the difference in what federal loans don’t cover. However, private loans aren’t always easy to get, have extremely high interest rates, and come with their own risks.
Private loans typically require a credit check. I don’t know about you, but early 20-something-year-old-me didn’t really have credit. I’d say most undergraduate kids don’t. You can sometimes use a cosigner, but what if you don’t have anyone? What if your cosigner wasn’t approved?
Interest rates are typically higher as well – overall leading to a higher price tag. What’s worse is that the repayment terms of that higher price tag are pretty unforgiving. For example, even though the COVID pandemic was considered a time of economic hardship for many, graduates with private student loans were still expected to make payments. Graduates with federal student loans had their payments put on pause.
The increased cost and risk of private loans is going to likely prevent people from choosing this route. I can’t say I blame them. I wouldn’t do it. So what’s ultimately going to happen is less people going to school and entering the PT field. It’s going to make the DPT degree achievable for only a small population.
This is going to decrease the diversity of the profession and make an already growing PT shortage worse. Ultimately these two things will negatively affect the current PT workforce and their patients.
Current PTs
For current PTs how much does this change? I don’t think much, at least not at first. Eventually though, I think we’ll all feel the repercussions of this change.
One possible repercussion is negative views on our autonomy and privileges as clinicians. Do I think it’s going to cause us to take steps backward? No. Currently all U.S. states have some form of direct access. I don’t think we’ll see that go away. But do I think this could stop PTs from advancing in our autonomy and privileges? Yes, absolutely.
When the next state or national legislative fight happens concerning increased autonomy or privileges for PTs, the opposing team is going to have the perfect argument. Here’s what they’ll say. “Well I mean they’re not even considered a professional degree by our government. So should we really be giving them more freedom?”
So in terms of professional advancement I don’t think this is good for us. Some PTs have made the argument they think this could be good for us in terms of salaries. With less people coming into the profession, they believe it would drive up demand for PTs. They think this increased demand may result in increased salaries.
Personally I’m skeptical about this. Without changes in reimbursement, I don’t think demand for PTs/lack of PTs is going to matter to those writing our checks at the end of day. There’s already a shortage of PTs and it’s only projected to get worse.
However, PTs actually make less now compared to cost of living and education than ever before. None of this has increased our salaries and I don’t think all of a sudden it will because an existing shortage just got worse. Again, those writing the pay checks have an argument. “You’re not even considered a professional degree, you’re making plenty.”
At the end of the day here’s what will happen. Once again, as healthcare providers, we’ll be asked to do more with less. PTs already report high burnout. It’s only gonna get worse with this change. I agree when we say we don’t want too many PTs out there, but this is going to bring staffing shortages and current healthcare workers to a breaking point.
Patients
So with staffing shortages and burnout becoming worse, that means patients will suffer. If there’s not enough PTs there’s a couple scenarios that can happen.
Option 1: Patients have to wait a REALLY long time to see a PT if we’re talking outpatient. With inpatient, only the worst of the worst will see PT and/or not very often. Patients’ pain and disabilities will get worse.
Option 2: PTs become forced to see more than one patient at a time or just higher volume in general meaning patients get less 1 on 1 time with us. Again, patients’ pain and disability get worse. Either way both of these scenarios lead to crappy patient care.
That crappy patient care is going to lead to a lot of people out there with functional mobility deficits and disabilities because they were unable to get the proper care to fix them in the first place. The goal of dropping occupations from this professional list was to decrease national spending. But what will the economic ramifications be of having a large part of the nation’s population be very sick and/or disabled?
What Can We Do?
So at this point, in this blog post and everywhere else we’ve talked to death about what’s happened and what some of the potential consequences are. What we haven’t talked a lot about is what we can do about it.
#1. Spread the word. Keep posting on social media, keep writing about it, keep telling your friends and family, and keep telling your patients. The healthcare world is very much aware of this issue, but the general population is not. Like we’ve talked about, this decision does not just affect potential future healthcare workers. It eventually will negatively affect current healthcare workers and their patients. That’s a lot of people and to start we all gotta get on the same page.
#2. REACH OUT TO YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES. I know, it seems like that is literally always the advice. However, if we don’t use our voice, we will lose it. I’ve said it before and I will say it again. The APTA action center makes it very easy. They provide a pre-written message so you don’t even have to think about what to say. This is how I contacted my representatives, but I made some modifications to APTA’s pre-written message and I urge you to consider doing the same. Here’s what I sent in.
“As your constituent, I urge you to intervene in the current efforts by the U.S. Department of Education’s to adopt a definition of “professional degree” programs.
In creating new loan limits for post-baccalaureate students in H.R.1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Department of Education’s proposed definition does not include a number of professional degree programs, including physical therapists. Excluding professional degree programs such as physical therapy, could jeopardize access to financing for future students, ultimately threatening the health care workforce supply.
Threatening the health care workforce supply will result in poor quality and access to healthcare for (insert state) residents, unfit working conditions for healthcare providers, and economic hardship for the state of (insert state).
It is critical Congress express its intent to those at the Department of Education that the list of professional degrees was intended to be broad. I ask that you contact Nicholas Kent, Under Secretary of Education, to urge the Department to reconsider the recommendation from the RISE Committee of what constitutes a professional degree, which runs contrary to Congressional intent.
If no action is taken by you as my current representative on this matter, I will have no choice but to place my support in a different candidate in upcoming elections. As I, in good conscience, cannot support a candidate that does not understand the gravity of this matter that could so severely affect so many of their constituents.
Thank you for your assistance on this important matter.”
So, I bolded the parts that I added in. Basically I just didn’t think the original APTA message went hard enough. Some people might say the last part is especially petty. What we have to start realizing though is what most of these politicians care about is staying in their seat. They care about votes.
Most of the time, healthcare workers and patients don’t have a lot of power in this wild healthcare system we’re asked to operate in. But if you take all the healthcare workers plus all the patients, that is a lot of people. That is a large constituency of voters and we have strength in numbers that way.
If politicians think they are jeopardizing the support of that many voters, that will hopefully put some pressure on. I think you get all the healthcare workers and all the patients on the same page with the same voice and messaging, I think that is what will get our representatives to actually make a move.
Who knows, maybe I am just wishful thinking. But we have to try, right? Maybe this wouldn’t be as catastrophic as I think it would be. Shit maybe it will increase our salaries. I certainly hope so because I think we will pay the price in sanity. What are your thoughts on all this? What other actions do you think we should take to prevent this from actually happening? Share in the comments.
If you’re interested in what else you’ve been missing on the PT legislative front you can read the blog post from a couple weeks ago. This is the last post of 2025! The PT Page we’ll be taking a little holiday break. Thanks for all your support this year. I hope everyone has a great holiday season with friends and family.
I’ll still be posting new stuff @the_pt_page on Instagram so make sure you’re following. If you need to catch up on 2025’s post check out the blog page. And make sure you hit subscribe below to get notified when new stuff comes out in 2026 so you can stay up to date on all things PT.
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