Access Denied: The Quiet Rollback of Black Women in Medicine
Who is allowed to pursue medicine, law, or dentistry in America? Allegedly, anybody is. But recent changes to federal spending laws change how accessible the education for these fields are. So, while technically anybody is allowed to pursue them, less people will actually be able to, including—-you guessed it— Black women. Black women are the highest educated affinity group in America, despite being the most economically disadvantaged. And yet, Black women make up only 3% of lawyers, 2% of doctors, and 5-10% of nurses. While these numbers are increasing in recent years, Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBA) may reverse that.
Simply put, OBBA implements federal loan restrictions, and redefines professional education. Before OBBA, all medical students had the ability to obtain Federal Direct PLUS loans and Stafford loans. But the Department of Education’s recent reclassification of “professional degrees”, has dramatically narrowed the number of people who will be able to receive these loans. Specifically, only 11 programs are deemed professional, resulting in many degree programs including Nursing, physical therapy, and other health professions being capped at $100,000 in federal loans (See full list of the programs here). In addition to the loss of access to these loans, these restrictions will limit new borrowers to only two repayment options.
This loss will directly lead to an increase in private loans, which have a higher interest rate, no income-driven repayment protection, and fewer forgiveness options. Though wealthier students may be able to mitigate this risk, first-generation and low-income students will undoubtedly struggle. Black communities disproportionately rely on federal loans to finance their education, and these barriers will impact them the hardest. With fewer Black women being able to put themselves through higher education, this will, in turn, lead to a decrease of Black women in medicine and other healthcare fields. We’ve already seen the consequences of a lack of Black women in healthcare in our country, for instance, the maternal mortality rate. Black women in America are 3 times more likely to die during childbirth than their white counterparts. Largely, this number is due to a lack of cultural competency, medical bias, and, most prevalently, structural racism. Countless studies have shown that the best way to tackle this obscene mortality rate is simply by having more Black doctors, physicians, nurses, etc. OBBA will limit the access most Black women have to attend higher education, decrease the amount of Black women in healthcare, and perpetuate the structural inequities that continue to endanger Black women’s health and well-being on a daily basis.
It is abundantly clear that limiting federal lending in these areas is not a test of fiscal responsibility, but an intensification of structural racism. Not only does OBBA inadvertently assert which people deserve access to higher education, but they subtly state which professions are of utmost value to the government. With changes like these affecting disadvantaged communities like these the hardest, it is important that we utilize our collective resources strategically. Now more than ever, we must mobilize to safeguard our access to opportunity, as we are the only ones with the ability to protect ourselves from systems that have consistently worked against us.
