Céline Gounder, 51ÊÓƵ Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed how children’s caffeine consumption is affecting their health on CBS News’ CBS Mornings on July 30.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Arthur Allen discussed the recent Anthony Fauci Senate hearing on CBS News 24/7 on July 29.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner discussed the Fauci hearing on WBUR’s Here & Now on July 29. Rovner also discussed exceptional Affordable Care Act enrollment in New Mexico on KJZZ’s The Show on July 29.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News national public health correspondent Amy Maxmen discussed the FDA potentially easing restrictions on peptide drugs on CBS News 24/7 on July 24.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News Georgia correspondent Briah Lumpkins discussed the local impact of the loss of Environmental Protection Agency grant money on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on July 24.

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• Read Lumpkins’ “Public Health Improvements Stall Amid Trump’s DEI Crackdown.”

51ÊÓƵ Health News HawaiÊ»i correspondent Ashley Mizuo discussed the challenge of finding placement for prisoners after their compassionate release from detention on HawaiÊ»i Public Radio’s The Conversation on July 22.

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• Read Mizuo’s “Severely Ill Prisoners Granted Early Release Are Left Stuck Behind Bars.”

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The majority of California’s roughly 300,000 teachers don’t have access to the state-funded paid leave program that most new parents in the private sector do. Instead, many local school districts deduct the cost of a substitute teacher from educators’ pay during parental leave.

Because her daughter arrived before the school year ended, Blustein used 10 of her accrued sick days — paid time off she wanted to bank for later to bond with her baby or to care for her if she got sick.

Now, California lawmakers have given public school and community college employees up to 14 weeks of paid pregnancy leave in the education bill accompanying the , after Gov. Gavin Newsom this year.

It’s a reversal for Newsom in his final year in office. In 2019, the governor that would have given school employees at least six weeks of paid leave, and a similar Assembly bill that died on the Senate floor in 2024. Several analysts said the issue appeals to voters on both sides of the aisle, ahead of Newsom’s potential 2028 presidential run.

State Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said in an email that “educator workforce recruitment and retention has been a priority for the administration since the governor’s first day in office” but that the funding was not previously available.

Paid leave policies for educators and other state workers have garnered bipartisan support in recent years, including in conservative-led states such as Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia, and blue states such as , said Vicki Shabo, a senior fellow specializing in gender equity and paid leave at the think tank New America.

After the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion, some conservative lawmakers in states that banned abortion embraced paid leave for public employees to signal support for babies after they were born, Shabo said. Many limited the benefit to state employees and framed it as a tool to recruit and retain them.

Elizabeth Gedmark, a vice president at A Better Balance, a nonprofit that advocates for workplace equality, said paid leave “polls incredibly well across all political lines, because everyone agrees that you shouldn’t have to go back to work a day after you had a baby.”

In 2019, President Donald Trump signed into law a bill that of paid leave. But Shabo said the current administration hasn’t made any moves to expand paid leave.

Palmer, of the Department of Finance, said the state can now afford the roughly $218 million leave program because of billions of dollars in unexpected tax revenue, largely tied to tech workers’ stock options. Much of that revenue is constitutionally guaranteed to schools, so it can’t cover other public workers who are also shut out of California’s paid leave system.

Many school district administrators have largely opposed paid leave in the past because of the cost. The state’s plan calls for districts to pay for the leave out of their annual cost-of-living raise, which this year is bigger than the law requires.

David Roth, superintendent of Buckeye Union School District in El Dorado County, said the math still isn’t great for some schools, and that “the real value reaching the classroom is smaller than the headline number suggests.”

The California Association of School Business Officials had opposed previous related legislation, saying it would create an “unfunded mandate,” but largely supports the new plan now that the start date has been pushed from July 1 to January 2027. The organization’s chief governmental relations officer, Sara Pietrowski, said concerns remain but that the group would work with the state to avoid additional fiscal challenges.

The proposal would close a gap that many Californians don’t realize exists. The state was one of the first to offer — under its current program, eligible workers get of their pay for up to 20 weeks of combined leave and disability benefits.

But most California teachers, , are shut out. The program is funded through a payroll deduction for state disability insurance, and public agencies are . Districts can opt in, but the move must be bargained collectively, as in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Most educators must use up their accrued sick days before receiving a fraction of their pay for the remainder of their leave, under a provision of the .

Because of that, it’s not uncommon for teachers to plan their pregnancy leave for summer breaks to try to avoid burning up their sick leave. But that can be challenging for those who have pregnancy complications or early deliveries, like Blustein, or those who experience challenges getting pregnant.

Erika Jones, an elementary school teacher in Los Angeles and the secretary-treasurer of the California Teachers Association, said her colleagues routinely teach until they go into labor, which can be disruptive.

It took one colleague around seven years to bank 77 sick days to use for a single pregnancy.

“Women go back sooner than they should have, because they don’t have the days,” Jones said. “You end up in this deficit zone.”

This article first appeared on 51ÊÓƵ Health News and is republished here under a .

This article first appeared on 51ÊÓƵ Health News and is republished here under a .

51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed the affordability of Affordable Care Act health insurance plans on Connecticut Public’s The Wheelhouse on July 22.

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Céline Gounder, 51ÊÓƵ Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed tick bites on CBS’ CBS Mornings on July 20. She also discussed wildfire smoke and severe heat on CBS’ The Daily Report on July 16.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Renuka Rayasam discussed the effects of soaring health costs in Georgia on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on July 17.

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• Read Rayasam’s “Patients Face a Thicket of Red Tape Trying To Maintain Consistent Health Coverage.”

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Homes that once belonged to friends, family, and neighbors had siding covered in mold. Some were boarded up. Others had holes in their roofs.

Black churches once used Oquina Creek, which runs along the border of the neighborhood, to baptize their congregants. Today, fecal bacteria and other contaminants have made the water unsafe due to an aging wastewater system.

“Sometimes you get the feeling like you’re in a Third World country,” Williams said. After three decades in Washington, D.C., he returned four years ago with a mission to revitalize communities such as Dewey City, which he said are “part of what makes Thomasville, Thomasville.”

A $19.8 million Community Change Grant from the Environmental Protection Agency was supposed to shift the tides of the neighborhood Williams grew up in.

The city and the , where Williams formerly served as community development director, applied for the grant in 2024. It was part of a $2 billion effort to help disadvantaged communities address environmental health risks and create clean energy and climate resiliency projects.

But three months after winning the grant, Thomasville became one of across the country — from to to — to see the funding stripped as priorities shifted in Donald Trump’s second presidency.

On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order titled “.” It stated that the Biden administration “forced illegal and immoral discrimination” through diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

In an emailed statement, EPA spokesperson Mike Bastasch said the administration is “fully committed to being a great steward of taxpayer dollars.” He added that the “radical agenda” of DEI and environmental justice “preferencing” are not within the agency’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment.

Environmental health advocates argue, though, that the decision to cut the grants was not rooted in science. They say that equating environmental justice to DEI is an act of bad faith and that withholding the money forces disenfranchised communities to delay long-overdue updates needed to protect public health for marginalized populations.

“I unfortunately believe we’re going to see a reversal in the health profile of this country,” said , an associate professor at the University of Michigan who served in the Biden administration as the first federal chief environmental justice officer.

“This current federal regime has decided that humanity and public health and justice don’t mean anything,” she said.

‘Why Us?’

Thomasville, near Georgia’s southwestern border, is home to just over 18,600 people.

The city had hoped to improve health outcomes in neighborhoods on its southern and western sides where, according to the grant proposal, “historical redlining created a legacy of disinvestment.”

Those areas have a deep history: Dewey City, for example, was the first neighborhood in the city where Blacks could build homes after the Civil War. It’s also home to the closed Douglass High School — the first public school for Blacks in Thomasville, established in 1902.

“This place has been neglected,” said Williams, who occasionally hosts historical walks through the community. “But it’s worth bringing it back online.”

The proposed “Restoring Resiliency” project featured a plan to remove toxic substances such as mold, lead paint, and asbestos from homes, repair a nearly 82-year-old wastewater system, and convert part of a shuttered high school band room into a health clinic.

“This was a long and storied attempt to bend the arc of justice closer,” said Jeremy Rich, a Thomas County commissioner and the pastor at First Missionary Baptist Church. “Justice in healthcare. Justice in environmental impact.”

Having a clinic in the community would be a “game changer,” Rich said. During the covid pandemic, he said, older residents who rely on public transit were reluctant to go to the nearby hospital or the county health department to get vaccinated. When his church offered shots from Black nurses, he said, vaccination rates improved.

Many residents don’t have the financial means to remove mold, lead paint, and other toxic materials, said Thomasville Mayor Pro Tem Lucinda Brown. “They just have money to live with every day. That’s it,” she said. “If they can make that happen.”

The grant meant hope, and its reversal left many asking, “Why us?” Williams said.

In the EPA’s May 2025 letter announcing the grant termination, it said Thomasville’s project promoted “initiatives that conflict with the Agency’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence.” The grant was “inconsistent with, and no longer effectuates, Agency priorities,” the letter said.

Environmental justice projects are rooted in science, not DEI, said Jillian Blanchard, the senior vice president of climate change and environmental justice at , a national nonprofit that provides pro bono legal assistance in focus areas such as health equity, immigration, and environmental health.

“Where is the water dirty? Where is the air unclean?” she said. “That is where the money should go.”

In June of last year, nearly two dozen communities and organizations around the country filed a to get the Community Change Grants reinstated. The lawsuit argued that the projects — such as efforts to create energy-efficient housing in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and empower Houston residents in the pollution permitting process — were vital.

The case was dismissed by a federal district judge in 2025 but is being appealed.

Thomasville was not named in that lawsuit. But the city did appeal the EPA’s decision on its project with the support of Blanchard’s group. The city and the EPA continue to dispute the issue.

This March, the EPA’s deputy inspector general, which serves as an independent watchdog for the agency, concluding that the process for determining the awardees was fair.

Such federal funding is needed because large-scale change is difficult for small municipalities to achieve without getting stuck with high-interest loans, Blanchard said.

“It’s next to impossible,” she said. “That’s one of the reasons the things haven’t been done.”

‘It’s Not Over’

The city of Thomasville has found other ways to make some improvements in the meantime. With the help of a nearly $3 million federal Community Development Block Grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, it made repairs to portions of Dewey City’s sewer, water, and drainage systems.

The Thomasville Community Development Corp. has begun building affordable housing in Dewey City and intends to convert a portion of the closed Douglass school into apartments for seniors.

The corporation has also applied for $764,000 in through the office of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) that it hopes to use to construct a community health clinic in Dewey City. Decisions on these funding requests will be made this fall.

“It’s not over,” said Williams, whose legacy in Thomasville runs deep. At the center of what locals call The Bottom — a two-block stretch of downtown where independent Black and other minority-owned businesses once thrived — is a plaque honoring his father, Earl Williams Jr., the city’s first Black mayor.

As he peered at his father’s memorial on a muggy afternoon, he reaffirmed his intentions.

“There’s more work to be done, and I’m able,” he said. “I like pouring into the community.”

But he has little hope the initial grant will be restored under the current administration.

“That was our shot. We didn’t do anything to miss it,” he said. “We just did it during the wrong period of time.”

This article first appeared on 51ÊÓƵ Health News and is republished here under a .

In February, ±á²¹·É²¹¾±â€˜i’s parole board granted the now-52-year-old compassionate release, which allows prisoners to receive early probation to seek .

But without a long-term care facility willing to accept him, Alameda has not been able to leave.

As of June, at least three other prisoners granted release to tend to their medical needs were living indefinitely in the infirmary after long-term care facilities were unwilling to accept them, primarily because of their criminal backgrounds, the state parole authority said.

“This is a challenge across the country,” said Molly Crane, an attorney for FAMM, which advocates for .

Every state allows for prisoners, though HawaiÊ»i is the only one without a specific law, relying instead on an internal policy. The prisoners who typically qualify for compassionate release can’t care for themselves or have terminal illnesses and may need an assisted living center, a nursing home, or hospice.

But many long-term care facilities nationwide decline to take such prisoners, leaving them incarcerated for months — or years — after they were granted release.

In , a study found that rejections from nursing homes soared after they were told that a patient was coming from prison. , prisoners with extensive medical needs stayed an average of 200 days after being granted parole, because of denials from long-term care centers. And in , prisoners granted parole sued the state when they couldn’t get placed in nursing homes.

President Donald Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act further strains long-term care providers’ ability to take people from incarceration. Prisoners don’t qualify for Medicaid, so parolees after they’re granted the release. The law, enacted last summer, reduces the window in which facilities can get reimbursed from three months to before they apply. That means facilities risk not getting paid for new Medicaid patients whose applications are not submitted within the reduced timeframe.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “encourages providers and beneficiaries to prioritize timely application submission to maximize coverage,” CMS spokesperson Timothy Foster said.

‘Risk Is Just Too High’

Most nursing homes nationwide already have a waiting list for new residents, according to a by the American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living. Those waitlists are another hurdle to getting prisoners placed, said Bob Merce, a former attorney who advocates for prisoners’ compassionate release.

“We tell the nursing homes that most of the people who we are talking about cannot hurt somebody,” Merce said.

Some of the prisoners staying at the Halawa infirmary in June couldn’t walk or dress themselves. One man couldn’t recall what his illness was. Another with brain cancer couldn’t coherently respond to questions.

Sean Sanada, the OÊ»ahu Region CEO with the HawaiÊ»i Health Systems Corp., oversees the region’s two state-funded long-term care facilities, Leahi Hospital and Maluhia. Sanada said that the health system has reviewed dozens of compassionate release referrals but has never accepted any of them.

Sanada said the facilities don’t discriminate based on where the resident comes from. His main concerns, he said, were his staff’s safety and the lack of resources to adequately care for the patient.

“The risk is just too high in most of those instances,” Sanada said.

Violent incidents in long-term care facilities have been well documented. A observing 14 assisted living facilities found that in just one month, 15% of residents experienced resident-to-resident aggression.

When long-term care facilities refuse to accept prisoners who have been granted compassionate release, it leaves state taxpayers footing a larger bill. The annual cost to incarcerate an individual in ±á²¹·É²¹¾±â€˜i with complex needs is up to eight times the $112,505 average of housing one person in prison, according to FAMM. In comparison, the average Medicaid reimbursement for a long-term care patient at a HawaiÊ»i Health Systems Corp. facility is about .

Four states — Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Vermont — contract with nursing facilities to take prisoners who are granted compassionate release, according to FAMM.

The iCare Health Network’s MissionCare Health, which operates nursing homes for people coming out of prison, secured contracts in three of those states. David Skoczulek, iCare’s vice president of business development and communication, estimated that its rates are $100 to $350 a day more per patient than the average nursing home rates in the states where they operate.

In Hawaiʻi, the correctional department determines recommendations to send to the parole board, which decides whether to grant the release. Prisoners who are granted the early probation can be released to family members who commit to caring for them or to a long-term care facility.

Corey Reincke, head of the HawaiÊ»i Paroling Authority, said that in his 24-year career he couldn’t recall getting anyone placed into a long-term care facility without family intervening, for instance by contacting facilities themselves.

“Parole has to find a facility that can meet their medical needs and is also willing to take them,” Reincke said. “That’s where we’re hitting the roadblocks.”

For one parolee, Reincke called more than 100 care homes, he said, but they all declined to accept the patient, over safety concerns. According to a 2024 state report, while HawaiÊ»i’s long-term care facilities use about workforce strains make it difficult to maintain even those levels.

HawaiÊ»i Prisoners’ Refuge: Family

Last year, 69-year-old Paul Kupihea died at a hospital five days after the state granted him compassionate release to his family. He died before he could get on a flight to his home island.

In July 2025, Lahela Kruse, the mother of Kupihea’s child, received a call from a Honolulu hospital informing her that his condition had become severe. By then he had been diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer and had been in and out of the hospital while still in custody.

Kruse and their daughter flew to Oʻahu to see him and were shocked when they saw how sick he was. Their daughter agreed to take him into her home in Hilo, on Hawaiʻi Island, despite not having a relationship with him for most of her life.

“She knew he was sick,” Kruse said. “I told her that, but she didn’t know the severity of it. I didn’t truly know.”

Her daughter’s willingness to take him prompted his compassionate release. But Kruse said the notification about Kupihea’s illness came too late.

FAMM’s Crane has been working on expanding compassionate release laws in states to allow for more prisoners to qualify and strengthen transparency in the process. HawaiÊ»i lawmakers have tried for years to pass bills on compassionate release, but none has succeeded.

Crane said without a law that outlines a formal process and who qualifies, even family support isn’t enough. Prisoners can still face life-threatening delays, she said.

“The absence of a compassionate release statute means that people who need compassionate release languish and even die in prison,” Crane said.

In Alameda’s cell, two beds stood about 3 feet apart, with a seatless metal toilet in the corner and a window looking out on a concrete wall. The smell of bleach permeated the room. Alameda said he hoped to see his daughter soon. She recently turned 5.

“I made some mistakes in my life,” said Alameda, who has been incarcerated since 2024 for drug possession, driving a stolen vehicle, and jumping bail. “I tried when my daughter was born, but I know I’ll change, because she needs me out of here.”

Merce, the former attorney, is still trying to find a place for Alameda, who committed no violent crimes. Merce became aware of prisoners’ struggles through his work as a trial lawyer. He said he has helped about 15 prisoners leave HawaiÊ»i correctional facilities for medical treatment.

He said he’s seen cases in which people have waited years to get out.

“The ones that stick with me, though,” Merce said, “are the ones that I never found placements for.”

This article first appeared on 51ÊÓƵ Health News and is republished here under a .

Céline Gounder, 51ÊÓƵ Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the Department of Health and Human Services’ plan to offer compensation for automatic covid vaccine injuries and the drop in enrollment in Affordable Care Act health plans on CBS’ The Takeout With Major Garrett on July 10 and 9, respectively.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News Southern correspondent Sam Whitehead discussed abortion telehealth on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on July 10.

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• Read Kate Wells’ “A Ban Won’t Stop Abortion Pill Access, Telehealth Providers Say.”

This article first appeared on 51ÊÓƵ Health News and is republished here under a .

Céline Gounder, 51ÊÓƵ Health News’ editor-at-large for public health, discussed the health risks of consuming raw milk and an outbreak of infant botulism linked to recalled 51ÊÓƵ on CBS News’ CBS Mornings and CBS News 24/7’s The Daily Report on July 7. Gounder also discussed allegations about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s oversight of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on CBS Mornings on July 6.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News Georgia correspondent Briah Lumpkins discussed extreme heat in Georgia on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on July 3.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Aneri Pattani discussed strategically directing opioid settlement money to support long-term impact during the National League of Cities’ June 25 webinar “Sustaining the Work: Strategically Leveraging Opioid Settlement Funds.”

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• Read 51ÊÓƵ Health News’ ongoing series “Payback: Tracking the Opioid Settlement Cash.”

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51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Julie Appleby discussed the high cost of healthcare and the political fallout on WAMU’s 1A on June 30.

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51ÊÓƵ Health News senior correspondent Renuka Rayasam discussed the public health concerns around a planned immigration detention center in Georgia on WUGA’s The Georgia Health Report on June 26.

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• Read Rayasam’s “A Trump Stronghold Grapples With Health Risks of ICE Detention Sites.”

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He had been targeted by a drive-by shooter in Jacksonville, Florida, and hospitalized with two gunshot wounds. During his weeklong hospitalization, he said, a physician assistant changed the course of his life by visiting his hospital bed each day and warning him that Black men with gunshot wounds often end up paralyzed — or worse.

“I used to run the streets, you know, on the wrong sides of the track,” Pinckney said. “He made me promise that I would never come into his ER that way again. That was the last conversation we had, right before I was discharged.”

His goal since then has been to become a physician assistant. Pinckney, who spent most of his career working for New York City’s Department of Sanitation and as an Army Reserve medic, recently took a step toward achieving it. In May, he graduated with departmental honors from Lehman College with a Bachelor of Science degree.

After moving from New York to Prince George’s County, Maryland, he’d planned on applying for physician assistant school this year. But now, he’s worried his dream may be thwarted by new student loan rules.

Starting July 1, the amount of money graduate students will be allowed to borrow from the federal government . The new student loan limits are part of the GOP’s tax-and-spending legislation known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law last year.

The caps are intended to curb the cost of higher education and student loan debt, according to the Trump administration.

But critics widely agree the new limits are too low, especially for students allowed to borrow only $20,500 a year in federal loans due to the law’s controversial definition of a “professional degree.” On June 24, a federal judge temporarily blocked the Department of Education from enforcing that definition. Still, for many students, the new caps won’t cover the combined cost of tuition, housing, and living expenses.

This could leave hundreds of thousands of students who borrow money for graduate school each year at the mercy of private lenders with higher interest rates and fewer repayment options.

Some experts and students also worry that the limits will threaten efforts to diversify the healthcare workforce by deterring minorities and people from low-income households from applying to graduate programs. A drop in incoming students could worsen existing rural and primary care shortages, they argue.

Many politicians and loan experts have acknowledged that the cost of higher education needs to be addressed. But the new federal loan limits are “just not going to achieve that goal,” said Todd Pickard, president of the American Academy of Physician Associates, one of several organizations that have sued the Department of Education over the rules.

“It’d be like if you had a hangnail and I cut your whole arm off instead of just taking care of your hangnail,” Pickard said. “The treatment doesn’t match the problem.”

‘A Rock and a Hard Place’

Students working toward what the law describes as “professional degrees” — including trainee doctors, dentists, pharmacists, and chiropractors — will be allowed to borrow up to $200,000 total, and no more than $50,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the median cost of attending a public medical school is nearly $300,000 over four years, while the median cost of a private medical school education exceeds $400,000, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

The caps were set even lower for those pursuing other “graduate” degrees, who face a $100,000 borrowing limit for federal loans over the course of their degree programs. The annual limit for this category of students is only $20,500. Students pursuing physical therapy, physician assistant, and nursing degrees were originally included in this group. But according to new guidance issued by the Department of Education on June 29, some of these students will at least temporarily be able to borrow up to the higher limit, .

The Department of Education, which has been sued by clinician trade groups and about two dozen states over the new rules, did not respond to questions for this article.

As the law was written, a physician assistant student who completed their degree within the average two to three years would not have been eligible to borrow the full $100,000. Meanwhile, physician assistants typically start their careers with an average debt of $112,000, meaning some could be forced to finance their education with higher-interest private loans.

“I feel like I’m between a rock and a hard place,” said Olivia Trull, 24, who is scheduled to begin the physician assistant program at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington, this summer. The 28-month program costs $137,000, with about $62,000 in tuition and fees estimated for the first year, she said. That doesn’t include living expenses.

Before the court order, Trull said she qualified for the maximum annual allotment under the new rules of $20,500 in federal loans during her first year of graduate school. The balance would need to be financed through a private lender.

She anticipated she would need up to $100,000 in private loans to finance her graduate degree and would face loan payments of more than $3,000 a month when she was done.

“I have to actually sit down and have a conversation with myself,” Trull said, to consider “if I want to be drowning in debt for the next 10 years of my life.” One private bank offered her a loan with an interest rate of nearly 14%, she said.

Pinckney, who said he finished his undergraduate degree with about $10,000 in federal student loan debt, said some of his friends who have already applied for private student loans have been quoted interest rates as high as 13%. Meanwhile, interest rates for federal loans for graduate students, which are set annually, are currently about 8-9%. Federal loans also offer more flexible repayment options than private loans typically do.

In May, 25 states and the District of Columbia against the Department of Education over the new rules. The complaint described the law’s “professional degree” definition as “arbitrary and capricious.”

In a separate filed in June, the American Academy of Physician Associates and the PA Education Association alleged that the new rules deny students the loan amounts needed to attend physician assistant schools. They argue that PA students should be able to access the higher loan limits available to students in medical school and other professional degree programs. (While “physician assistant” and “physician associate” typically refer to the same role, the AAPA in 2021 because of “concern that ‘assistant’ does not reflect the important role of PAs in delivering high-quality healthcare to patients.”)

Meanwhile, Trump administration officials have contended the cost of graduate school is too high across the board. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, speaking before a House committee in May about the new limits, said, “It is our overall goal to bring down the cost of college and education.”

Indeed, some experts acknowledge that the new limits may be helpful in bringing down costs. The federal Grad PLUS loan program, established by Congress 20 years ago, did not cap the amount graduate students could borrow in federal loans. That program was eliminated in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“There is considerable evidence that people borrowed more than they really needed to go to school,” said Sandy Baum, a higher education economist and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

Already, some graduate programs have lowered tuition prices, Baum said. In May, for example, the it would lower the cost of its MBA programs by tens of thousands of dollars to fall below the new federal lending thresholds.

And yet Baum doesn’t anticipate many other schools will follow suit.

“I don’t think we’re going to see some dramatic decline in prices,” she said. “I think some programs could close down because they can’t manage.”

‘Tears Have Been Shed’

The new lending limits will also disproportionately affect Black students, Baum said, because they have historically borrowed more than white and Hispanic students.

For some students who borrowed money to finance their undergraduate degrees, the new limits will hit especially hard. Under the new rules, they will be subject to a lifetime limit of $257,000 in federal student loans.

“There will be students who can’t enroll,” Baum said.

Andrei Robu, 26, a medical student at the Medical University of South Carolina, leads the Financial Literacy Interest Group on the Charleston campus. He said many of his peers are worried that the lending limits will make the student body less diverse.

He is also concerned that, because the demand for acceptance into medical school is already so high, schools could prioritize entrance for students from wealthy backgrounds and “still fill up their classes.”

“That’s just not what we want in our physician workforce,” said Robu, who isn’t subject to the new rules as a current student. “We want to represent the population of the country at large.”

Jasmine Vasquez, 26, who has been accepted into the physician assistant program at South College in Atlanta, decided to defer her enrollment until 2027, partly to see if her financing options change. She is worried about taking on too much debt from a private bank.

“Tears have been shed multiple times,” said Vasquez, who is due to give birth in September. “It’s nothing that’s within my control.”

Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute for Student Loan Advisors, expects the new rules will force some graduates into bankruptcy when they can’t afford to repay private loans.

First, though, she expects enrollment numbers to drop and some graduate programs to close because they can’t recruit enough students. Completion rates will also drop, she expects, as students run into federal loan limits partway through their degree programs.

Beyond that, she predicts healthcare graduates will seek jobs in high-paying specialties, exacerbating shortages in rural and underserved communities.

“They’re going to go where they can make the most money,” Mayotte said.

Pinckney said he is “not really sure” what the future holds. He paid for most of his undergraduate education by working while he was in school, but that’s typically not possible for full-time physician assistant students.

He has considered applying to a biomedical science graduate program instead, which he estimated would cost about $30,000 — an amount that’s “a lot more doable,” he said. It would allow him to potentially work in a lab or in pharmaceuticals, he said. It’s still aligned with medicine, he said, but it wouldn’t help him realize his goal of working with patients.

“Maybe this thing will blow over,” he said of the new federal loan limits. In the meantime, he’s holding out hope.

“If I can influence one person’s life, that would be my way of paying him forward for what he did,” he said, referring to the physician assistant who inspired him back in 1999. “It’s very hard to pivot from that dream.”

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