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New York’s $4,500 Field-Practicum Bill Is a Start—not a Wage
August 23, 2026 A New York bill now before the Legislature would create a four-year paid field-practicum pilot for MSW students. Assembly Bill A9379B, amended June 1, would provide a $4,500 stipend for the first 450 hours of required practicum to students attending CSWE-accredited programs in the state. The arithmetic is clarifying: $4,500 divided by…
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The $20,500 MSW: Federal Loan Limits Are Forcing Social Work to Confront Its Price
August 2026 A student deciding whether to begin an MSW this fall is confronting a different financing system from the one that existed a year ago. Beginning July 1, 2026, new federal rules cap Direct Unsubsidized Loans for graduate students at $20,500 per year and $100,000 in the aggregate. Graduate PLUS loans, which previously allowed…
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Nebraska’s Medicaid Work Rule Turns Social Workers into Eligibility Infrastructure
August 24, 2026 Nebraska is now the first state implementing the new national Medicaid work-requirement framework, and the consequences will become visible during this summer’s renewals. Since May 1, many adults covered through Medicaid expansion have had to demonstrate qualifying work, school, apprenticeship, training, or volunteer activity. Existing members with coverage periods ending on or…
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Eighty Hours to Stay Insured: Medicaid’s 2027 Work Rule Is a Test Social Work Cannot Ignore
August 2026 On January 1, 2027—or sooner in states that choose early implementation—millions of adults will enter a new Medicaid eligibility regime. Under a federal interim final rule issued June 1, 2026, many nonpregnant adults ages 19 through 64 in the Medicaid expansion group must document 80 hours a month of employment, education, a work…
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Social Work Put All Its Eggs in the Therapy Basket. Now What?
We Devalued the BSW For decades, social work has increasingly organized its professional identity around the MSW, clinical licensure and psychotherapy. In doing so, we have allowed something remarkable to happen: the bachelor’s degree bearing the actual name of our profession has become insufficient for social work licensure in jurisdictions such as New York. Think…
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Launching The Social Work Reformer
More than three decades ago, Harry Specht and Mark E. Courtney published Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned Its Mission. Their central argument was deliberately provocative: social work was drifting away from its historic responsibility to poor and vulnerable communities and increasingly embracing psychotherapy, private practice, and individualized solutions to problems that are often…