Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday that the Trump administration is limiting women’s access to education by restricting federal student loans for study in fields such as nursing, teaching, and social work, where women represent the majority of students.
At the town hall at the U.P. State Fairgrounds in Escanaba, the New York Democrat launched her single-day tour of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with Abdul El-Sayed, the state’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. Over 500 people attended the event at a pavilion as part of El-Sayed’s “It Shouldn’t Be This Hard” bus tour, according to WMUK.
Ocasio-Cortez called for free tuition at public colleges and interest-free student loans as a way to address a system that treats education like a business.
“I’m from the Bronx, where we desperately need doctors and have some of the highest maternal mortality rates in the United States,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd. “When we make a business of education, our communities get left behind.”
“And not only should we not be charging interest rates, but public colleges should also be tuition-free,” she continued. “And beyond that, we have to really be asking ourselves, what is the utility of putting people in indentured servitude their entire lives for seeking an education?”
Then she moved to the new restrictions on student loan availability set by the Administration.
“Not only that, but I want to be very clear that what the Trump administration is doing specifically is attacking women’s ability to get an education. All right?” she said. “Because they put down that list of what they’re making harder, what they’re not going to give people student loans for, and it’s nurses, it’s teachers, it’s social workers. They don’t want women to go to college, y’all.”
“And they’re defunding the ability for people to become nurses, teachers, and social workers,” she added.
She explained how loan limitations affect the lack of physicians in rural areas of Michigan.
“We have to understand what the deal is here because then what happens is that the U.P. doesn’t have doctors,” she said. “And then if you do become a doctor, you’re in so much debt, you have to go to a big city to get a really high-paying job just to pay off your loan.”
“So once we address this issue, we’re able to expand our ability to have health care for everybody,” she concluded.
Ocasio-Cortez talked about the limitations of federal student loans, which came into effect on July 1st as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – a spending and tax bill, approved by Republicans and signed by President Donald Trump. The legislation ended graduation-level (Grad) PLUS loans, allowing graduate students to borrow up to the total cost of attendance.
Currently, almost all graduate students can only borrow up to $20,500 per year and $100,000 overall. Professional-level students can borrow up to $50,000 per year and $200,000 overall. As of the latest rule issued on April 30th, only 11 fields qualify as professional: medicine, law, dentistry, pharmacy, and theology. Programs for professions such as nursing, education, social work, physical therapy, and physician assistant studies were excluded.
Professional associations, universities, and other organizations started legal actions. On June 24th, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, sitting in Washington, D.C., blocked the definition, saying it was too narrow compared with the law Congress passed. However, the restriction on student loan limits remained.
The U.S. Department of Education then published an interim list of 29 eligible programs, including advanced nursing, physician assistant, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology degrees. However, the graduate education and social work degrees still do not meet the eligibility criteria for student loans.
“Without the addition of social work, the list of professional degree programs remains incomplete,” Matt Hooper, Vice President of the Council on Social Work Education, said to Inside Higher Ed on July 6th.
Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent said the department will disagree with the ruling but will comply and challenge it. Other challenges to the student loan caps were filed in Maryland and Massachusetts. One of them was filed in the name of 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Women comprise the majority of the college-student pool. In 2021, they comprised 58% of all undergraduate students and 61% of graduate and other postbaccalaureate students, according to NCES. In 2017, about 87% of registered nursing degree holders and 81% of education degree holders earned their degrees.
The student loan limitation applies to all students in these educational programs, regardless of gender, affecting both men and women. The Administration claims this restriction is needed to limit overborrowing beyond a reasonable level of repayment and to encourage colleges to lower tuition. The department uses the list of professional-degree programs as its tool.
Under the same law, the earnings test applies to all programs. Undergraduate programs should demonstrate that their graduates earn more than the general population of workers aged 25 to 34 with a high school diploma. Graduate programs, in turn, should show that their graduates earn more than those with a bachelor’s degree.
Suppose programs cannot show that twice over three years; they are denied access to Direct Student Loans starting July 1st, 2028. As Kent stated, it is unacceptable for taxpayers to fund the programs whose graduates earn less money. According to the data published by the Department in January, approximately 6% of programs may fail.
Ocasio-Cortez, a potential 2028 presidential candidate, visited the Upper Peninsula on Thursday with El-Sayed, an epidemiologist and former Detroit health director. After Escanaba, they had a town hall at Pine Mountain Resort in Iron Mountain, where more than 400 people attended. They ended the day with a rally of more than 1,200 people at the Vandament Arena at Northern Michigan University in Marquette.
The region tends to be quite Republican. In 2024, Delta County, which includes Escanaba, supported Trump over Kamala Harris by a margin of 64% to 34%. Ocasio-Cortez acknowledged that and told the audience at the rally in Escanaba that she hopes that some Republicans attending the rally will be open to her arguments.
El-Sayed, who runs on ideas such as Medicare for All and getting money out of politics, also criticized the high costs of college. You shouldn’t have to go into debt to obtain a higher education,” he claimed.
Mike Glass, Public Information Officer of the Delta County Republican Party, told WLUC that El-Sayed’s proposals don’t reflect what some Americans believe. Speaking at the rally in Marquette, Ocasio-Cortez criticized Republican candidate Mike Rogers, a former congressman tied to the pharmaceutical lobby. Rogers criticized El-Sayed and his Medicare for All idea during the first debate on October 8th in Grand Rapids.
El-Sayed won the August 4th Democratic primary for this seat, which now belongs to Senator Gary Peters, who decided not to run for re-election; the race is now a toss-up and will determine control of the Senate. Election Day is November 3rd.
Ocasio-Cortez will campaign in Detroit on Friday, including at the “Latinos for Abdul” rally, according to Semafor. Obama will join El-Sayed at a Detroit rally on October 24th.
