For now, the White House has not formally called for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education. That’s little comfort for many in higher education who fear the administration will continue to wreak havoc with its move-fast-and-break-things approach to policymaking.
Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported viewing a draft version of an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Education Department” to “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
Other news organizations followed suit with similar reports, but by Thursday afternoon the administration denied that an order was forthcoming, calling the earlier reports “fake news.”
Observers have been awaiting an order to dismantle the department since Trump’s inauguration. The president had promised on the campaign trail to shut it down as part of a strategy to put more spending and policy decisions in the hands of states — a goal of some conservatives since the department was founded 45 years ago.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office Thursday that he was not backing away from plans to try to shutter the department. “I mean, we’re starting the process,” he said, according to CBS News. “We’re trying to get the schools back into the states.” But he gave no indication of a timeline for signing the executive order.
The odds of the department being closed have never been good. In her confirmation hearings, McMahon acknowledged that eliminating the agency would require Congress to pass a bill — which is unlikely, given that such legislation would need votes from at least seven Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
Even so, McMahon released a memo after she was confirmed by the Senate, laying out what she called the department’s “final mission.” Other news organizations have reported that the department offered staff members $25,000 to quit before the agency makes deep cuts to staff.
If the money doesn’t flow in a predictable way, that would be a doomsday scenario.
The department doesn’t have to be eliminated to be weakened substantially. Higher-education associations, scholars, and campus leaders have all expressed deep concerns that the administration will continue to alter the department in ways that are disruptive to both colleges and students who rely on the programs and money it administers.
Cuts and pauses in payment for federal grant contracts from the other agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of State, among others, are causing colleges to freeze hiring and eliminate positions for graduate students.
The financial impact of the administration’s actions could eventually be even more dire. Some campus officials envision what they consider a worst-case scenario: that the department will eliminate programs and staff dedicated to the disbursement of federal financial aid, such as student loans issued by the agency and Pell Grants for students from low-income families.
Trump told reporters Thursday that if the Education Department were shuttered, loan administration would be absorbed into another agency — “either Treasury, or Small Business Administration, or Commerce.”
Many colleges are still smarting from the previous administration’s misadventure of making changes to the system students use to apply for federal student aid. The process for next year’s applications is now on schedule, said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, but she fears a combination of policy changes within the department and staffing cuts could lead to a repeat of last year’s debacle.
“If the money doesn’t flow in a predictable way, that would be a doomsday scenario,” McCarthy said.
For-profit colleges, which were given some favorable treatment during Trump’s first term, also have concerns about disrupting student-aid dollars, said Jason Altmire, president and chief executive of the Career Education Colleges and Universities, an association of proprietary institutions.
Many such colleges draw up to 90 percent of their operating budgets from federal aid, so disruptions in those dollars could be an existential threat.
Other possible changes would have particular impact on CECU’s members, Altmire said. For example, if the department decides to offload many of its regulatory responsibilities to the states, it would create major hurdles for colleges that operate online across several state boundaries, especially in states that have taken a hard line on regulating for-profit colleges.
Most Americans do not support major cuts to education dollars, let alone eliminating the department.
Even if the White House never achieves its goal of eliminating the Education Department, the administration has made its policy goals clear, said David Houston, assistant professor of education policy in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University.
“It’s an effective use of the bully pulpit,” said Houston, because it sends a signal to the education secretary and members of Congress that they have political cover to cut as much as possible.
Whether that convinces the public is another question, said Houston, who studies partisan views of education policy, and believes “most Americans do not support major cuts to education dollars, let alone eliminating the department.”
Midterms are already looming, Houston said. That alone might be enough to convince some Republican members of Congress to balk at this portion of the administration’s agenda.
