WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is considering steps to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, with potential executive action coming as early as this month.
A White House official told USA TODAY that Trump plans to fulfill a campaign promise by reevaluating the future of the agency. That effort includes defunding it, according to Reuters. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly pledged to completely close the department, which has been around for decades and administers billions of dollars to schools each year.
Trump does not have the authority to abolish the agency by executive order. But experts told USA TODAY he might still direct the education secretary to come up with plans to weaken its functions.
While the Cabinet-level position of education secretary isn’t yet filled, that responsibility could fall to the acting secretary, Denise Carter, who led the Federal Student Aid office during the Biden administration. Linda McMahon, a Trump donor whom the president nominated to lead the agency he promised to close, hasn’t secured a date for a confirmation hearing before the Senate because of delays in processing her ethics paperwork.
Read more:Trump axed support for tribal and Hispanic-serving colleges. They’re not happy about it.
Shuttering a federal agency requires passing new legislation in Congress, which Trump’s directive could urge lawmakers to do. A Republican congressman from North Carolina re-introduced a bill to do away with the department last month.
But the GOP has a slim majority on Capitol Hill, and galvanizing support for such a controversial measure wouldn’t be easy. Republicans don’t appear to have the votes, though that could change, according to Karen McCarthy, the vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.
The Education Department, which has no say in school curriculum, plays a major role in shielding students from discrimination. It also protects them from predatory colleges and holds higher education institutions accountable for ensuring their degrees provide a good return on investment.
It oversees nearly $2 trillion in federal student loans, a figure on par with some of the biggest banks. Moving those funds to a different agency such as the Treasury Department, which Republicans have proposed, would be no small feat, McCarthy said.
“Nobody could really imagine that Chase could fold into Citibank quickly or easily,” she said. “I don’t know why people are thinking that the federal student loan portfolio could easily move.”
Just two weeks into the second Trump administration, the agency has already shifted directions politically in a big way. It has scrubbed references to diversity, equity and inclusion from its websites and begun investigating high schools with gender-neutral bathrooms. It now advocates for the school choice movement and briefly frightened students around the country with the prospect of a massive freeze on federal aid. The administration has frozen a wide range of Biden-era policies, too, including regulations about student loan relief and college oversight.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
Joey Garrison covers the White House. Reach him on X @joeygarrison.
