AuD Federal Loan Action

As you may know, effective July 1, 2026, federal loan programs will change. Graduate PLUS loan will phase out, resulting in the standard graduate school loan cap of $20,500 per academic year. Students in a professional degree program will be able to receive $50,000 per year. However, audiology is currently not classified as one of the 11 professional degrees by the US Department of Education. Therefore, reclassification of audiology as a professional degree is one of the critical and urgent missions in audiology education. 

We urge you to participate. The numbers matter! 

1. There is a bill in the House to amend the professional degree classification. Contact your representative and ask them to support this bill. It’s very easy through the American Academy of Audiology (AAA)’s information page, which provides you with links to contact your House representatives. You will need to enter your information, including your zip code, and the message will be sent to your representative. There is a textbox where you add your own story – this is the key part, because these letters need to be unique and not just a template.  (While there, you can also contact your representatives about supporting the MAAIA bill – also SO important for audiology.) 

2. We expect the Department of Education will release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding the professional degree programs soon (“late January”), which triggers a 30-day public comment period. Each of us submitting unique feedback to this process will be critical. Keep an eye out for this – Sign up to receive alerts from AAA so you can act when this feedback period opens. 

Audiology needs all of you to help our government understand that this is an important issue for us. Please take the 10 minutes it takes to let your representatives know that, and later, the US Department of Education.