11/26/2025
🌟 Idaho Needs Counselors. Federal Policy Should Be Expanding Access, Not Shrinking It. 🌟
Friends, families, clients, and community members — I rarely post calls to action, but this one matters deeply, regardless of political affiliation. The counseling and mental health fields are facing a federal policy change that could impact EVERYONE, especially children and teens here in Idaho.
The Department of Education is considering lowering federal loan limits for counseling, clinical psychology, social work, and school counseling programs. They are no longer treating these as professional degrees, even though they lead directly to licensed healthcare roles that carry significant legal and ethical responsibility for people’s lives. Meanwhile, programs like medicine and law keep much higher borrowing limits.
This might sound like a small policy shift, but it could cause serious harm — especially in Idaho.
🇺🇸 It's a National Crisis… But Idaho Is Hurting Even More
Across the country:
💔 More than 120 million Americans live in mental-health shortage areas
💔 Almost half the country struggles to access care
💔 Su***de is the second leading cause of death for youth ages 10–24
💔 Mental health jobs will grow 18% in the next decade (over 42,000 openings every year)
BUT HERE’S THE PART THAT SHOULD STOP ALL OF US:
🇮🇩 Idaho has some of the worst mental health stats in America
📉 Idaho ranks 48th in the nation on overall mental health status
📉 Su***de is the 2nd leading cause of death for Idaho youth ages 9–18
📉 An estimated 53.8% of Idaho youth with serious emotional disturbance (SED) don’t get the treatment they need
📉 All 44 counties in Idaho have a behavioral-health provider shortage
📉 Families regularly wait months to get their child into therapy — or never succeed at all
This isn’t abstract. This is where we live.
And this federal change would limit the number of future counselors who can afford to enter our field, at a time when Idaho can least afford to lose even one more.
🎓 Counselors are healthcare professionals
Master’s-level clinicians are the backbone of the mental-health system.
These degrees require:
📚 Years of graduate school
🧠 Thousands of supervised clinical hours
📄 National exams
🔒 State licensure
🔄 Continuing education
⚖️ Legal responsibility for safety and crisis management
This is professional training. To classify it otherwise is inaccurate and harmful.
🚫 Lowering federal loan caps hits Idaho especially hard
Many Idaho students:
• Are first-generation college students
• Come from working-class or rural backgrounds
• Have no financial safety net
• Cannot afford private loans with high interest rates
Federal loans are often the only way Idaho counselors can enter the field. Capping those loans below the actual cost of the degree will shut out the exact people who most often return home to rural towns, small communities, and underserved counties.
And when that happens? Children and families wait even longer for care. Schools lose essential support. Communities lose hope.
🗣️ It’s time to speak up!! The American Counseling Association is gathering stories from counselors across the country.
If federal student loans helped you become a counselor…
If you worry about the future of mental-health access…
If you want kids to have the therapists they deserve…
👉 Please take a moment to share your story.
Thank you for caring about this. Thank you for standing up for our nation's and our state's families. Thank you for supporting the counselors who show up every single day for our community. 💛🐝
Share Your Student Loan Story Share how federal student loan have enable you to pursue counseling
