OME Advocate Newsletter

On November 6, 2025, during the second week of the Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Negotiated Rulemaking Committee, negotiators reached consensus on the entire set of regulatory proposals issued under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), P.L.119-21, by the U.S. Department of Education (ED). One negotiator abstained. ED will now develop a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking based on the consensus package for publication in the Federal Register, where it will be open for public comment. 

The package reflects consensus on 17 proposals, including borrowing limits and adjustments to repayment plans, but much of the discussion centered on the definition of graduate and professional degree programs relative to the new loan borrowing limits enacted in the OBBBA. Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent and others from ED joined during final discussions, pointing out that more than 2,000 individual doctoral programs would fall within ED’s new proposed definition. In the final consensus package, the DO degree remains designated as a professional degree along with the other nine original programs in statute, with the addition of a doctorate in clinical psychology and other doctoral programs that share a four-digit Classification of Instructional Programs code with the listed programs.

On December 8, 2025, the Accountability in Higher Education and Access through Demand negotiated rulemaking will begin. View AACOM’s summary of the second RISE session and the consensus package.

On November 12, 2025, following a compromise brokered in the Senate between Republican leadership and eight Democratic Senators, the House voted 222-209 to reopen the government, ending the 43-day shutdown. The package includes full-year, fiscal 2026 funding for Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments, military construction projects and the Legislative Branch. Most other government departments and programs will be funded at fiscal year (FY) 2025 levels in a continuing resolution (CR) through January 30, 2026. Democrats failed to include extension of the Affordable Care Act premium tax credits in the package, but as part of the Senate deal, Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) promised Democrats a vote on the credits by early December. The bill also authorizes back pay for federal employees, including those furloughed, and bars agencies from reducing full-time staff before January 30, 2026.

Of particular importance to osteopathic medical education are the funding levels and extensions of the following programs in the CR through January 30, 2026:

• $1.4 billion for the Community Health Center Fund
• $115.3 million for the National Health Service Corps
• $58.5 million for the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program
• Telehealth extension to allow for greater Medicare coverage of virtual health services

Congress must still reach agreement on funding for the remaining FY26 appropriations bills. Last week, Senate GOP leadership signaled through a hotline that the next appropriations package to advance will likely combine the Defense, Commerce-Justice-Science, Interior, Labor-HHS-Education and Transportation-HUD bills. Both the House and Senate versions of the FY26 Labor-HHS-Education bills include the AACOM-requested report language urging increased NIH engagement with osteopathic medical schools and expanding community-based clinical rotations. AACOM will continue working with appropriators as negotiations move forward to ensure these priorities are retained.

Thanks to osteopathic advocates, Reps. Josh Harder (D-CA), Dan Meuser (R-PA), David Valadao (R-CA) and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) signed on as cosponsors of the Community Training, Education, and Access for Medical Students (Community TEAMS) Act, H.R. 3885. This bipartisan legislation will create a new Health Resources and Services Administration grant program to increase medical student clinical rotations through partnerships between medical schools and Federally Qualified Health Centers, Rural Health Clinics and other healthcare facilities located in medically underserved communities.

Use the button below to send messages urging support for this bill directly to your elected officials and join hundreds of advocates making a real difference for DO students across the country.

• On October 31, 2025, the Trump administration issued its final rule detailing changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program which granted ED expanded power to ban organizations from the program if their work is deemed to have a “substantial illegal purpose.”
• In response, the National Council of Nonprofits and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, along with several cities, labor unions and nonprofits across 22 states, filed two lawsuits against ED. Both lawsuits claim that the new rule violates both the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act.
• The final rule is set to go into effect on July 1, 2026. For more information, read ED’s fact sheet and a National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators analysis of the final rule.

• On November 6, 2025, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing on Reforming Financial Transparency in Higher Education. The Committee heard testimony from five higher education experts on how Congress can address the affordability concerns surrounding higher ed programs.
• The hearing included discussion of multiple bipartisan pieces of legislation designed to improve college cost transparency, such as the College Transparency Act, S. 2511, the Net Price Calculator Improvement Act, S. 1557 and the Understanding the True Cost of College Act, S. 1558. Committee members and experts agreed that efforts to make student financial aid more accessible and transparent are critical in reforming higher education.
• Much of the discussion also highlighted concerns with implementation of the higher education provisions in the OBBBA passed earlier this year, and the strain placed on the healthcare workforce pipeline by new borrowing limits.
• Read AACOM’s summary of the hearing for more information.

• On November 5, 2025, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that all 50 states submitted applications for the new $50 billion Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program, created by the OBBBA to strengthen rural healthcare nationwide. The application window ran from September 15 to November 5.
• The RHT Program aims to improve access and quality in rural communities by supporting innovative care models, stabilizing rural providers and strengthening the rural health workforce.
• CMS will now review applications in two stages: an eligibility review determining half of the funding, followed by a merit review for the remaining awards. Approved states will be announced by December 31, 2025, with funding beginning in FY26.

• On November 12, 2025, ED published a notice inviting applications, including from institutions of higher education, for new awards for FY25 within the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Special Projects (FIPSE-SP).
• The FIPSE Special Projects Program will award $167 million in discretionary grants to support innovative projects aligned with areas of national need: advancing AI in higher education ($50M); promoting civil discourse on campus ($60M); promoting accreditation reform ($7M); and capacity-building for short-term programs ($50M).
• No cost share is required but indirect costs are capped at eight percent.
• Applications are due December 3, 2025, and ED intends to make awards by December 31, 2025. View AACOM’s summary of the FIPSE-SP awards.

• In August 2025, the Trump administration issued a directive ordering colleges to submit six years’ worth of application and admissions data disaggregated by student race and sex as part of the 2025-26 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) reporting cycle.
• A notice issued on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, clarified that only four-year institutions would be subjected to the new reporting requirements. Additionally, open-enrollment institutions that only award aid based on financial need do not need to submit this data to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which oversees the IPEDS system.
• Institutions and higher education associations have raised concerns about the directive since its announcement, worrying it may result in administrative burden.
• Read AACOM’s submitted comments to the NCES on the new reporting requirements from October 2025.