As President Donald Trump signs an executive order aimed at dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, many are asking what that might mean for schools, students and those with student loans.
Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979.
A White House fact sheet said the order would direct Secretary Linda McMahon “to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Trump’s action will make the department much smaller than it is today.
Here’s a look at the department and what could be in store:
What does the Department of Education do?
According to its website, “the mission of the Department of Education is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access for students of all ages.”
Among other things, the department advocates for awareness of challenges faced across the country in the education field, while also spearheading “programs that cover every area of education and range from preschool education through postdoctoral research.”
One of the department’s functions includes underwriting student loans.
Student loans and financial aid
The Education Department manages approximately $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers. It also oversees the Pell Grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold, and administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid ( FAFSA ), which universities use to allocate financial aid.
President Joe Biden’s administration made cancellation of student loans a signature effort of the department’s work. Even though Biden’s initial attempt to cancel student loans was overturned by the Supreme Court, the administration forgave over $175 billion for more than 4.8 million borrowers through a range of changes to programs it administers, such as Public Service Loan Forgiveness.
The loan forgiveness efforts have faced Republican pushback, including litigation from several GOP-led states.
Trump has criticized Biden’s efforts to cancel debt as illegal and unfair, calling it a “total catastrophe” that “taunted young people.” Trump’s plan for student debt is uncertain: He has not put out detailed plans.
Civil rights enforcement
Through its Office for Civil Rights, the Education Department conducts investigations and issues guidance on how civil rights laws should be applied, such as for LGBTQ+ students and students of color. The office also oversees a large data collection project that tracks disparities in resources, course access and discipline for students of different racial and socioeconomic groups.
Trump has suggested a different interpretation of the office’s civil rights role. Under his administration, the department has instructed the office to prioritize complaints of antisemitism above all else and has opened investigations into colleges and school sports leagues for allowing transgender athletes to compete on women’s teams.
In his campaign platform, Trump said he would pursue civil rights cases to “stop schools from discriminating on the basis of race.” He has described diversity and equity policies in education as “explicit unlawful discrimination.” His administration has launched investigations of dozens of colleges for alleged racial discrimination.
Trump also has pledged to exclude transgender students from Title IX protections, which affect school policies on students’ use of pronouns, bathrooms and locker rooms. Originally passed in 1972, Title IX was first used as a women’s rights law. Last year, Biden’s administration said the law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, but a federal judge undid those protections.
College accreditation
While the Education Department does not directly accredit colleges and universities, it oversees the system by reviewing all federally recognized accrediting agencies. Institutions of higher education must be accredited to gain access to federal money for student financial aid.
Accreditation came under scrutiny from conservatives in 2022, when the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools questioned political interference at Florida public colleges and universities. Trump has said he would fire “radical left accreditors” and take applications for new accreditors that would uphold standards including “defending the American tradition” and removing “Marxist” diversity administrators.
Although the education secretary has the authority to terminate its relationship with individual accrediting agencies, it is an arduous process that has rarely been pursued. Under President Barack Obama, the department took steps to cancel accreditors for a now-defunct for-profit college chain, but the Trump administration blocked the move. The group, the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools, was terminated by the Biden administration in 2022.
Money for schools
Much of the Education Department’s money for K-12 schools goes through large federal programs, such as Title I for low-income schools and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Those programs support services for students with disabilities, lower class sizes with additional teaching positions, and pay for social workers and other non-teaching roles in schools.
During his campaign, Trump called for shifting those functions to the states. He has not offered details on how the agency’s core functions of sending federal money to local districts and schools would be handled.
What could it mean for you?
Federal funding makes up a small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14% — but it adds targeted support for low-income schools and special education, among other grant programs.
Trump’s action will make the department much smaller than it is today, but it will continue managing federal student loans and Pell grants, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. Other critical department duties such as enforcement of civil rights will remain, she said, but she did not say how they will be fulfilled.
“The great responsibility of education, educating our nation’s students will return to the states,” Leavitt told reporters.
Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.
“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.
The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments or eliminated altogether. At her confirmation hearing, Linda McMahon said she would preserve core initiatives, including Title I money for low-income schools and Pell grants for low-income college students. The goal of the administration, she said, would be “a better functioning” department.
States and districts already control local schools, including curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion. Block granting has raised questions about vital funding sources including Title I, the largest source of federal money to America’s K-12 schools. Families of children with disabilities have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.
Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.
A fact sheet says Trump’s executive order also directs Secretary Linda McMahon to “ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely” while facilitating the closure.
What’s next?
Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress, and they urged Republicans to join them in opposition.
Attorneys general in 21 states, including Illinois’ Kwame Raoul, have filed a lawsuit attempting to “stop the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Department of Education,” according to a statement from Raoul.
“President Trump and his bootlickers — I have other words to describe them, too — are tearing down, even as we speak, the Department of Education from inside,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said earlier this month.
Illinois was expected to receive around $3.56 billion in federal funding in fiscal year 2025. The governor said $1.33 billion of that funding would support more than 295,000 students receiving special education services. In the previous academic year, more than 225,000 students in Illinois received over $1 billion in Pell Grants to help make college more affordable and accessible for students from low-income households. Pritzker’s office is also concerned about potential impacts to the 1.6 million student loan borrowers across the state.
“Our educators throughout this state are saying, ‘no.’ We will not let you harm our children. We will not let you take financial aid away from our students,” said National Education Association President Becky Pringle.
Supporters of Trump’s vision for education welcomed the order.
“No more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said on social media. “States, communities, and parents can take the reins — tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.”
Even as Trump moves to dismantle the department, he has leaned on it to promote elements of his agenda. He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education money to target schools and colleges that run afoul of his orders on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.
Some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
