Today, the National Women’s Law Center, along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Legal Defense Fund, and 48 partner organizations submitted a comment urging the Department of Education to reject proposed changes to the definition of “professional degrees,” which would determine which post-baccalaureate degrees would count as “professional” to set caps on the amount of loans students can take out. Our comment explains that the Department’s proposed definition would disproportionately impact women, who are the predominant holders of the degrees that would be excluded by the proposed definition. This includes the degrees of nurses, physicians assistants, physical therapists, educators, and social workers. Our comment points out that these changes devalue careers that provide vital services to communities and require years of serious study and training. It urges the Department to reverse course so that these careers are not put further out of reach by worsening financial hurdles faced by women—and Black women, in particular, who hold the most student loans out of any group—to accessing graduate education. Read our comment here.