Lisa Ramos graduated last month from the University of Texas at El Paso with a Master of Science in Nursing degree. She chose the family nurse practitioner track because her dream has been to elevate the community’s level of public health.
“I want to do patient care,” Ramos said shortly before her May 17 commencement ceremony at the Don Haskins Center. “I want to help fill the gap in (health) care in the community, especially when it comes to family practice.”
Ramos, 32, said new caps on most graduate student loans at $20,500 per year and $100,000 for a lifetime would not have affected her choice to pursue an MSN degree.
That’s because of UTEP’s relatively inexpensive tuition and fees, she said. The university charges around $8,600 to about $15,000 per year for tuition and fees for the MSN program depending on the track selected.
None of the local public higher education institutions charge more than the proposed cap, but nursing officials remain concerned that a limit to federal financial aid for graduate students could negatively affect healthcare and academia because it could reduce the pipeline of nurses with advanced skills as well as qualified nursing faculty who will prepare the next generation of nurses.
The new rules under President Donald Trump’s administration go into effect July 1.
Ramos, a registered nurse who lives on the Far Eastside, spent $10,000 out of pocket for her first year of the program. She filed her FAFSA the second year and received more than enough to complete her MSN degree to include books and fees.
With that degree, Ramos probably could land an advanced, high-demand role in research, academia, healthcare administration or human-centered information technology, but she plans to pursue opportunities at a family practice clinic.
Nationally, there is a growing need for people with MSN degrees.
More than 29,000 advanced nursing jobs will open through 2030 – a growth rate of 45%, according to Nursing License Map, an online resource for licensure, academic pathways and job prospects.,
People with MSN degrees are in demand as nurse practitioners, educators and managers across the healthcare spectrum such as hospitals, private clinics, and academia, as well as with biotech, insurance and artificial intelligence companies to bridge clinical knowledge and technological innovations.
At the same time, the Association of American Medical Colleges projected a shortage of up to 122,000 physicians by 2032. The hope is that nurse practitioners can help offset that need. Nurse practitioners can diagnose, treat and manage short- and long-term illnesses, and prescribe medications.
While the new loan cap may not greatly affect MSN students who enroll at local institutions, experts worry that it may lead some students to rethink their plan to earn that degree. Those same people believe that could have a negative ripple effect.
Among those concerned is Gloria Loera, associate professor and graduate program director at the Texas Tech Health El Paso Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing. She said she was disappointed with the Department of Education’s decision.
The government has contended since late last year that the loan limits would lower the cost of a graduate education and reduce student debt. Additionally, the administration stated that 95% of nursing students borrow less than the planned annual loan limit.
Loera reasoned that as more nursing faculty age into their retirement years nationally, this rule could limit the number of future instructors and that could mean fewer future nurses when there already is a nursing shortage.
According to an August 2025 entry by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the need for nurses will grow by 5% through 2034. There will be more than 189,000 openings for registered nurses annually for more than a decade as nurses retire or leave the field.
“It’s a double impact in many areas,” said Loera, an El Paso native who earned her MSN in nursing administration from the University of Texas at Arlington.
The TTHEP administrator is a member of several state and national nurses organizations to include the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The association is among the 277 state and national nursing organizations that have protested this student loan cap and requested the Department of Education reconsider its decision.
Additionally, 25 attorneys general from Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit last month to invalidate the new rule that could exacerbate workforce shortages in some career fields and limits the definition of professional degrees.
“We already have a shortage of nursing faculty, aging faculty, and I believe that this will directly impact that, which in turn will impact the ability to bring in pre-licensure nursing students to pursue nursing as a profession,” Loera said.
TTHEP offers one MSN track in leadership. Graduates should be able to take on administrative roles and elevate the overall level of nursing care and patient outcomes, she said.
The online degree program lasts six semesters. It enrolls about 14 students per year with almost all of them from the region. Since the program started in 2018, it has produced 23 MSN graduates and almost all have remained in the area.
Tuition and fees is about $6,400 a semester for in-state students. She said almost every MSN student applies for one of the program’s academic scholarships and about half of them take out student loans. She said registered nurses who work at the local hospitals often receive employer tuition reimbursement.
Loera said that in fall 2025, there were about 400 openings for nurse administrators in Texas. Their salary range was from $110,000 to $250,000.
Amy Daher, chief nursing officer at University Medical Center of El Paso since June 2020, did not comment on the possible effects of the graduate student loan cap, but she was adamant that nurses with MSNs bring value to the healthcare system.
Daher said UMC encourages its nurses to continue their education for their professional growth. As of January 2026, the center employed 158 nurses with MSN degrees. Those nurses serve in a wide range of roles from bedside care to education to leadership.
The UMC official, who earned her MSN from UTEP in 2007, said that degree provides graduates with leadership skills, advanced clinical knowledge, and a broader understanding of healthcare operations.
“These competencies are critical in today’s environment where nurses are not only providing care, but also leading teams, improving processes, and making decisions that directly impact patient outcomes,” Daher said as part of an email interview.
At UTEP, like TTHEP, the courses are offered online with clinical experiences completed in the students’ local communities. UTEP offers tracks in nursing education, nursing administration and management, and nurse practitioner with six concentrations that span all stages of life from pediatrics to geriatrics as well as mental health. The programs typically take about two years to complete.
Under current pricing, in-state students who pursue their MSN nurse practitioner track would pay approximately $25,000 in tuition and fees. Those who choose the education or administration tracks would pay around $17,200. Additionally, there is the one-time application and graduation fees, and costs of books and materials, which could be at least another $1,600 per academic year. Non-residents would pay more.
The average national cost for an MSN degree is $20,000 to $60,000 at a public university and $40,000 to more than $100,000 at a private institution.
UTEP’s Leslie Robbins, dean of the College of Nursing, did not respond to questions about the short-term and long-term effects of the Department of Education’s decision on healthcare and academia.
Robbins also did not share her opinion on the Trump administration’s choice to exclude the nursing field from those where “professional” graduate students could get loans up to $50,000 annually and $200,000 for a lifetime.
While the tuition and fees that UTEP and TTHEP charges for MSN degrees will sound even more reasonable when compared to some private institutions that can charge more than $100,000. Those private institutions promote faster time to completion, small class sizes, personal mentors, better clinical placement, and improved course schedules.
The Department of Education finalized its decision April 30 to cap federal direct unsubsidized loans for non-professional graduate programs. The 11 “professional” fields where students were eligible for larger loans included law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, optometry, podiatry and veterinary medicine.
According to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the government based its choice on federal guidelines from the Higher Education Act of 1965 that was used throughout the 1970s where a graduate degree would provide students with skills beyond a bachelor’s degree and where a license is required.
El Paso natives Melissa Enriquez, 29, and Deanna Campbell, 21, said the new Department of Education rule was demeaning and disrespectful of the nursing field. Both participated in UTEP’s spring commencement exercises, but will earn their Bachelor of Science in nursing this summer. They plan to pursue MSN degrees.
Enriquez, a married mother of two young children, said she plans to study her financial options for graduate school. The Eastside resident works as a certified surgical technologist at two outpatient surgery centers on the Westside. Her immediate goal is to become an operating room nurse.
Campbell said that she has a pending job offer from one of El Paso’s Eastside hospitals. After working in the field, she would consider an MSN in nursing education to be an instructor. However, she stressed that one of her first priorities is to be the best registered nurse possible.
Both disagreed with the cap on graduate student loans, which was part of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which also will eliminate Graduate PLUS loans for new borrowers as of July 1. The Department of Education offered those loans to help graduate students cover expenses not met by other financial aid.
“I think it’s horrible,” Campbell said. “A lot of people (from this region) don’t come from a lot of money, but they have big dreams to get into this profession. It sucks if you can’t follow your dreams.”
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