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▲ 150 r/socialwork

[Gift Link] Health worker shortage will worsen with federal loan limit, 25 states say in suit

A potentially important development in the issues surrounding student loan availability for MSW.

>The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Maryland, comes nearly three weeks after the Education Department finalized rules that lower the amount of money graduate students can borrow from the federal government. The rules, which take effect July 1, are a feature of the One Big Beautiful Bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer. They implement borrowing caps based on whether students are pursuing a degree in what is designated as a professional or graduate program.

Students in professional programs can borrow up to $50,000 a year and $200,000 total, while those in graduate programs will face annual limits of $20,500 and a lifetime limit of $100,000.

The law listed examples of professional programs, including pharmacy, dentistry, veterinary medicine, chiropractic, law, medicine, optometry, osteopathic medicine, podiatry and theology.

Before now, all graduate students could borrow up to the full cost of attendance, which conservative lawmakers blamed for high program costs and high student debt.

In the fall, the Education Department and a committee of higher education experts negotiated the details of the loan caps, but the terms sparked a backlash over the exclusion of some professions from the higher loan limits, including nursing, physical therapy and social work. The department received more than 80,000 comments on the proposed rule, with many industry groups challenging the professional designation and warning that students would be shut out of critical fields.

Professional degrees are not limited to the list, the regulation says, but the Education Department held fast to the examples — only agreeing to add clinical psychology after intense debate with experts.

Despite the outcry, the Education Department refused to further expand the list of degrees deemed professional in the final rule.

In the lawsuit, the states claim the department exceeded its authority with an arbitrary definition of “professional degree” that Congress never envisioned.

wapo.st
u/BringMeInfo — 2 days ago
▲ 76 r/lgbthistory

On This Date: Frieda Belinfante Was Born

Born in Amsterdam in 1904, Frieda Belinfante became the first woman in Europe to be artistic director and conductor of an ongoing professional orchestral ensemble in 1937. She enjoyed significant success for the next several years, until the rise of the Nazis.

As the Nazis gained power, Belinfante joined the Dutch resistance who helped prepare forged documents for Jewish people and others wanted by the Nazis. She also helped organize the bombing of the population registry in 1943, which destroyed thousands of files, stymying Nazi efforts to identify forged documents. After the bombing, she went into hiding, dressing as a man for three months while living with friends. When her attempts at hiding, she fled the Netherlands, culminating in crossing the Alps on foot to reach Switzerland.

Following the war, Belinfante returned to the Netherlands, but in 1947, she emigrated to the United States, where she resumed her musical career. She was the founding artistic director of the Orange County (California) Philharmonic and built the ensemble into an important second-tier organization. She led the organization from 1954-1962, when a combination of sexism and homophobia led to her ouster.

Reflecting on her career, she said, "It was just too early for me. I should be born again. I could have done more, that's what saddens me. But I'm not an unhappy person. I look for the next thing to do. There's always something still to do." Perhaps she was born too early to achieve all the musical success she deserved, but she was born just in time to save hundreds or thousands of lives in World War II.

u/BringMeInfo — 11 days ago
▲ 456 r/lgbthistory

On This Date: Tom of Finland Was Born

Born on this date in 1920, Tom of Finland (né Touko Laaksonen) had a profound impact on gay pornography and gay aesthetics in general. Characterized by hyper-masculine aesthetics (with sexual features to match), Tom's work has grown in stature over the years.

Originally considered scandalous at best, and illegal at worst, the images he created are now generally recognized for their importance, such that, in 2014, his native Finland released a series of commemorative stamps featuring some of his illustrations, and in 2023, the Finish national museum of contemporary art put up a major retrospective of his work.

u/BringMeInfo — 13 days ago