President Donald Trump has been talking about abolishing the Department of Education for a while and last week he signed an executive order directing it to be wound down. As with many of the president's recent executive orders, this oversells his ability to actually shut down the department, although it did pave the way for major cuts to be made as he tries to get his way.
The Trump administration announced on March 11 that about 300,000 Department of Education workers, or roughly half of its total workforce, would be laid off. Furthermore, leases were also reportedly terminated on the department's regional offices in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland and New York. Trump has cited the need to eliminate bloat and fraud within the federal government but some laid-off workers speaking to USA Today countered that gutting the department could cause more "waste, fraud and abuse" to proliferate.
The Department of Education has been around in some form since the mid-19th century, with its current cabinet-level form created when a law passed by Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter spun it off from the broader Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1979. Over the decades, it's frequently come under fire from conservative lawmakers, including from President Ronald Reagan, Carter's successor, but the calls have usually been for it to be stripped back, not shut down outright.
This pushback was supercharged, however, when Trump pledged during his 2024 campaign to do just that: eliminate the department. That threat took another step forward in early March, when Trump's former Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon (yes, that Linda McMahon) was sworn in as the new secretary of education and quickly sent a memo to department workers claiming that they would be carrying out its "final mission." Although the executive order from last week won't quite finish the job, it's explicitly in preparation for a full-on shutdown of the department.
All that said, many questions remain about this plan's feasibility and how much benefit there would be in doing it, if any, versus the disruption it would cause. For everything we know at this stage, keep reading, and for more, find out how recent IRS cuts might affect your tax return.
What does the Department of Education do?
Trump and his allies have frequently alleged that the Department of Education is responsible for the spread of certain teachings in public schools that they oppose. This has been one of the bigger criticisms animating conservatives' calls to shut down the department, on top of their usual claims of federal overreach and supposed misuse of taxpayer money.
In truth, the department doesn't have control over what goes into the curricula at any public schools or over approved book lists and hiring practices. Those decisions happen at state and local levels. Even Common Core, an attempt to standardize teaching material across many states in an effort to better prepare students for college or the workforce, wasn't a Department of Education project.
The Department of Education does, however, have control over the disbursement of federal Title I funds to students with disabilities or those living in poverty. It also has a hand in protecting students' civil rights, collecting data from schools to analyze emerging trends, sharing the findings of that analysis back to schools and dispensing federal student loans and Pell Grants to college students. The closest it comes to influencing what's taught at schools is advocating for some reforms or practices.
Can Trump abolish the Department of Education?
As far as most legal and political experts are concerned right now: No, he definitely can't. Trump can strongly advocate for the closure of the Department of Education, direct McMahon to prepare for its closure and slash its resources, but he cannot, by himself, order it to be shut down.
Only an act of Congress can abolish or establish an agency like the Department of Education, which McMahon acknowledged during her confirmation hearing. Even though Republicans now control the House (218-214) and Senate (53-47), they don't have the 60 votes needed to overcome the filibuster in the latter chamber and it's nearly impossible to imagine any Democrats or independents supporting a plan like this.
After signing the executive order last week, Trump called on Congress to pass legislation fully shutting down the department. Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said that he plans to submit such legislation "as soon as possible." This plan is unlikely to get past the Senate, however, as Democrats have enough members to prevent the bill from overcoming the filibuster and are far less likely to support such a bill than they were to back down over the funding bill drama.
Matt Dallek, a professor of political management at George Washington University and an expert on presidential powers, spoke with CNET via email about the roadblocks in Trump's way and the narrow paths forward he might have, which might let his administration spread the department's duties elsewhere without actually abolishing it. That's certainly how McMahon seemed to characterize last week's layoffs, calling them part of a "commitment to efficiency, accountability and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most."
"The biggest hurdle to abolishing the Education Department is that it would be, almost certainly, illegal and unconstitutional," Dallek wrote. "Under any reasonable reading of the separation of powers and Congress' role as the lawmaking and appropriations branch of government, a president can't simply sign an executive order abolishing a cabinet agency. But it's possible that the Supreme Court could find a rationale, thin though it might be, to let Trump do it."
Dallek noted, "Another scenario is that the department's functions are either whittled away, or cut, or some combination therein, and the department becomes a shell that does little actual work. Its purpose would be gone, and its main functions, if they even existed, would be transferred elsewhere in the federal government."
What happens if the Department of Education is abolished?
Despite all that, you probably shouldn't expect the Trump administration to back down from the plan so easily, which raises the question of what will actually happen if the Department of Education is abolished.
In the past, closed federal departments usually had their authority given to other entities. On the surface, that's what Trump is calling for: the department's activities, by and large, sent down to the state level or potentially to other federal departments.
Crucially, though, there's been no plan laid out for how that would all shake out, causing widespread concern that the department's responsibilities would simply go away. So as for what would happen with the department abolished, it's the same as a lot of things the administration has suggested. We don't really know for sure.
Based on the description of the Department of Education's duties described above, critics of Trump have argued that abolishing it would disproportionately harm the ability of disabled, lower-to-middle-income or marginalized populations to access quality education.
"If it became a reality, Trump's power grab would steal resources for our most vulnerable students, explode class sizes, cut job training programs, make higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle-class families, take away special education services for students with disabilities, and gut student civil rights protections," Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association labor union, told NBC News.
Would abolishing it affect federal student loans?
Speaking with CNET previously, Elaine Rubin, a student loan policy expert and director of communications for the financial aid and scholarship assistance company Edvisors, speculated that the department's higher education loan programs could be transferred to the US Treasury but that the process could be lengthy.
"Some have argued that this responsibility should fall under the Treasury, given that federal student loans are funded by the Treasury," Rubin explained. "The transition, while time-consuming, could be manageable."
Meanwhile, student loan expert Mark Kantrowitz explained to CNET that "there may be some chaos" with such a transition because of the Treasury's lack of "experience with higher education rules." He did note, on the bright side, that the terms and interest rates of your loans wouldn't change if they were controlled by a different agency.
If you have federal student loans, then maybe be prepared for some amount of discomfort, but it might be the least of the issues caused by axing the department. For the time being, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration of student loans and Pell grants would remain at the Department of Education until such a time as Congress fully shuts it down.
For more on student loans, find out how you can start preparing for the end of the SAVE Act.