Linda McMahon arrives for her Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing on February 13, 2025.
One of President Donald Trump’s biggest targets in his second term has been the Education Department, a federal agency established in 1979 that oversees the enforcement of federal law in schools. He’s called the department “a big con job,” and expressed his hope that Linda McMahon, confirmed on Monday to head the agency, will “put herself out of a job.”
In an email to the department just after her confirmation, McMahon called on staffers to “join us in this historic final mission,” which she described as “a last chance to restore the culture of liberty and excellence that made American education great.”
Trump is also reportedly planning an executive order to abolish the department, though he cannot legally close it without cooperation from Congress. (During her confirmation hearing, McMahon agreed that congressional action would be necessary, and said some programs would continue.) Meanwhile, the agency’s Office for Civil Rights has switched its focus from protecting students against racial and disability discrimination to investigating cases of transgender athletes competing in women’s sports. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has already slashed research programs, and the administration has laid off dozens of employees — actions that education advocates say amount to eliminating the department in all but name.
“They’re really gutting it from within,” said Blair Wriston, senior manager for government affairs at EdTrust, an education equity nonprofit. “The people who suffer are going to be the kids.”
It’s not just children. In addition to bolstering underfunded K-12 schools and protecting the rights of kids with disabilities, the department also manages the federal financial aid process for college students. “I am not certain whether or not students will be able to get financial aid next year,” Dominique Baker, a professor of education and public policy at the University of Delaware, told Vox.
The Education Department’s critics misrepresent it as a tool for the federal government to exert control over schools. It’s actually an agency tasked with supporting the nation’s most underserved students while also overseeing the massive and complex ecosystem of federal student loans — and disrupting those functions could affect students and families across the country.
What the Education Department does
First, let’s talk about what the Education Department doesn’t do. It does not set K-12 curricula or tell schools what to teach. That’s up to states and individual districts. So when Trump says he wants to get rid of the Education Department in order to send education “back to the states,” it’s somewhat misleading, because state and local governments are already in charge of what kids learn in schools.
What the department does do is “implement all of the federal laws and policies that focus on schools,” Baker said. At the K-12 level, a lot of that work involves supporting vulnerable and underserved students, said Kenneth Wong, a professor of education policy at Brown University.
Under a program known as Title I, the department sends federal money to schools with a high percentage of low-income students to help them hire additional teachers or otherwise bolster core subject areas like reading, Wong said. The federal government makes up about 14 percent of school budgets overall, according to the Associated Press, but low-income schools receive additional funding.
The department also sends money to states under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), helping schools provide small class sizes and other supports for students with disabilities and learning differences that state governments wouldn’t be able to afford on their own.
While these programs are important to many elementary, middle, and high schools around the country, the Education Department plays an even bigger role with colleges and universities, Baker said. It makes sure the application for federal financial aid, the FAFSA, is available to students, that the information students enter is sent to colleges, and that the money is actually disbursed.
The department also helps make sure that for-profit colleges “aren’t scamming students,” Baker said, by controlling which institutions get access to federal student aid.
Two other key functions to know about: the Education Department serves as a “watchdog for student civil rights” at K-12 schools and colleges, Wriston said. If students with disabilities aren’t getting the support they need to access their legal right to an education — supports that can range from wheelchair ramps to occupational therapy to a one-on-one aide — their families can file a complaint with the department’s Office for Civil Rights. Students and families can also file with the office if they believe they’ve experienced racial discrimination at school.
And through the Institute of Education Sciences, the department conducts research on education around the country, including the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, probably the best source of nationwide data on students’ reading and math skills. “The vast majority of any statistics that we know about schooling comes from data that’s collected by the federal government,” Baker said.
What Trump wants to do, and what DOGE is already doing
It’s unclear exactly how the Trump administration might go about “closing” the Education Department. He cannot fully eliminate the department without help from Congress, and while legislation to do so has been introduced, it’s unlikely to pass the closely divided House and Senate. Instead, Trump could seek to move some parts of the department to other agencies — Project 2025, a blueprint for much of the Trump administration’s actions thus far, calls for converting Title I funds into grants to the states, and moving the Office for Civil Rights to the Department of Justice.
But DOGE isn’t waiting for an executive order, terminating dozens of contracts at the Institute of Education Sciences in February. Though the cuts reportedly don’t affect the NAEP tests, much of the work of the Institute “has ground to a standstill,” Baker said.
Meanwhile, more than 60 department employees have been terminated, including people responsible for civil rights and financial aid, with the potential of more layoffs in the future. (The Education Department has about 4,400 employees.) Last Friday, employees received an email offering them $25,000 if they agreed to quit by Monday; the message also said “a very significant reduction in force” was coming, according to the New York Times.
Regardless of what happens with any future executive order, the Trump administration and DOGE “are actively dismantling the department,” Wriston said.
How gutting the Education Department hurts students
That dismantling is already having an effect on students. As soon as Trump was inaugurated, the department’s processing of disability rights complaints ground to a halt, families told the Associated Press. That has left students — including a 12-year-old boy with autism and epilepsy who’s been unwillingly assigned to remote schooling — without recourse and, in some cases, losing precious weeks and months of learning.
Instead, the department has focused on trans athletes and all-gender bathrooms. The agency also sent a letter to school leaders saying they could face investigation if they take steps to diversify their teaching staff or recruit students of color for selective programs, according to Chalkbeat.
Meanwhile, cuts at the Institute of Education Sciences include programs addressing young children’s literacy and improving the transition out of high school for students with disabilities, Wriston said. Dismantling the Institute is especially ironic at a time of nationwide concern over declining NAEP scores, he said. “We’re going to gut the agency completely that’s doing the real work here of gathering the research and evidence to help inform our practices.”
Without the data the institute collects, it will also be more difficult for taxpayers to see the impact that cuts by the federal government might have on kids’ education, Baker said.
At the college level, meanwhile, experts fear a breakdown in the basic systems that allow students to apply for, use, and repay their student loans. Without a functioning Education Department, it’s not clear how students’ financial information will be collected and sent to universities for financial aid decisions, or who will certify borrowers’ income for income-based repayment plans, Baker said. The department already struggled with the rollout of a new FAFSA last year, and given canceled contracts and other changes under the new administration, “I don’t know why anyone would expect smooth sailing next year,” Baker said.
Gutting the research and oversight functions of the department could also make it easier for colleges to lie to students about their graduation rates and the success of their graduates, experts say.
Over the long term, parceling out programs like Title I and IDEA to other departments — each with their own functions and priorities — could weaken those programs’ ability to serve the high-needs students they were created to support, Wong said. The Education Department is (or was) full of experts who have spent their careers serving students, and other departments simply won’t have the same expertise. And, of course, those other departments are also on the chopping block in the DOGE era, Wriston pointed out.
As Trump and DOGE move forward with their plans, advocates and voters can respond by “elevating the stories and the perspectives of impacted communities, of families and students and educators who are being impacted by this,” Wriston said. “Those perspectives are critical right now.”
While students and families are the most directly impacted by changes at the Education Department, those changes have also inspired a broader concern. Some of the programs terminated by DOGE are congressionally mandated, and if the president or Musk can simply stop them, “that means that Congress no longer actually functions,” Baker said.
“There are no longer checks and balances for the executive branch,” Baker said. “A significant part of this goes beyond education and speaks to a constitutional crisis that shapes the future of our country.”
