As you may have heard, accountants are now among the professions not deemed “professional” by the Department of Education under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. So what does that mean and how does it affect you?
In simple terms, it doesn’t affect you at all if you are done with school and, if still in school, it won’t affect you either unless you need to borrow more than $100,000 which no one out there should be doing for a MAcc. Nurse.org explains further:
The OBBA caps undergraduate loans and eliminates the GRAD PLUS program for graduate and professional students [Ed. note: effective July 1, 2026], while creating a new Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP). Under the new plan, only students pursuing a “professional” degree can borrow up to $50,000 annually.
To clarify who can access that money as a professional student, the Department of Education categorized the following programs as professional:
- Medicine
- Pharmacy
- Dentistry
- Optometry
- Law
- Veterinary medicine
- Osteopathic medicine
- Podiatry
- Chiropractic
- Theology
- Clinical psychology
According to NewsWeek, this is the full list of degrees that are not classed (no pun) as professional:
- Nursing
- Physician assistants
- Physical therapists
- Audiologists
- Architects
- Accountants
- Educators
- Social workers
At this point it’s unclear why accountants are even on this list and how this could impact accounting PhD students. This news just came out so we await clarity from the AICPA and will update this article accordingly.
Not that we haven’t had a nursing shortage for 30 years.
Stunningly stupid
Theology > nurses & architects now?? I mean you can’t teach this level of stupidity, you need to be born with it; definitely 👍
And this is why we need to dissolve the Department of Education!
Just need different people to head it.
The administration did not say that accountants aren’t professionals, and he did not say that being an accountant is not a valid or respected profession.
What his administration actually addressed was student loan policy, and specifically the cost of education. When schools charge excessive money, it raises serious concerns about extreme tuition inflation and potential institutional abuse.
This issue is about protecting students from predatory education costs, not devaluing accountants.
No one benefits from defending a system that traps students in massive debt for a career with a median salary less than $100,000 for a significant portion of their career. The financial math doesn’t make sense. It only serves lenders and institutions — not the students.
This kind of reporting feels intentionally misleading and designed to stir outrage where none exists. It is done to stop schools from predatory costs which leaves students with massive student debt and an insufficient income to repay it.
Female dominated fields.. doesn’t take a genius to understand the strategic move here is really for. This is not how you fix the education issues in the USA, but ok sure – keep drinking the coolaid.
You would have a point, except for the elephant in the room… why was theology left as a professional degree?
You do realize that your comment just supported his point right? Theology majors are mostly **white males**.
Theology? Not every theology student is going to a Televangelist! Don’t try to tell me this wasn’t political!!!
It’s actually more nuanced than this article presents. For grad programs, there is an annual cap of $20,500 that increases to $50,000/year for a “professional degree program”. MACC programs tuition typically exceeds that (add in living expenses and it greatly exceeds this). Because MACC is no longer considered a “professional degree program”, students in a one-year MACC program can’t borrow the cost of the program. People may argue that the 150 hours are going away…but people who are “career changers” often enter a MACC program to become accountants. these people will need to self-fund or get non-federal loans (with high interest rates) to afford a MACC in the future.
I’d say this is a good move, the professions that aren’t eligible do not pay well enough to be borrowing $50k a year for graduate school. Kind of confused why theology is still on the eligible list.
I wonder what this will do to the pipeline problem? What about “Pippins v. KPMG LLP, No. 13-889 (2d Cir. 2014)” Audit Associates could not be paid overtime as they are professional? Could this be overturned?