Linda McMahon, President Trump’s pick to lead the Education Department, will testify before the U.S. Senate’s education committee on Thursday.
If she’s confirmed, Trump has said her first task would be to “put herself out of a job.”
Trump has promised to shut down the department in favor of reducing federal spending and putting education in the hands of the states — a sentiment embraced by conservatives since the department’s founding 45 years ago.
A president can’t unilaterally eliminate the department without congressional approval.
But the Trump administration has already tried to shutter an agency — directing mass budget and staffing cuts at the United States Agency for International Development — and pause billions in federal funding, including for higher-ed research. Courts have ordered the administration to unfreeze funding; news reports indicate that some parts of the government, including the National Institutes of Health, have not fully complied.
What the Department Does
In higher education, the Education Department distributes grants for minority-serving institutions and student success, manages the federal work-study program, argues civil-rights cases, and awards more than $120 billion a year in federal student aid.
It’s unclear what exactly Trump plans to do with essential functions, such as financial aid, if he closes the department. Some Trump allies have floated moving financial matters, like grants and loans, to the Treasury Department. Civil-rights cases could fall under the Department of Justice, said Kenneth L. Marcus, a lawyer who served as an assistant education secretary for civil rights during the first Trump administration.
Marcus believes some shifts could be beneficial: Integrating education with other departments could result in more staffers with certain skill sets — like accountants and lawyers — handling non-policy matters like finances and investigations, as opposed to former educators and school administrators.
“That could facilitate a smoother function and greater efficiency and possibly a shift from administrative approaches,” Marcus said.
Christopher F. Rufo, a conservative activist and trustee at New College of Florida, a small public institution that’s seen its curriculum and culture reshaped by Republicans, laid out his own vision for the shutdown in an article on Tuesday.
If the Education Department closes, Rufo wrote, student financial assistance should “spin off” into a different, independent financial entity that would evaluate costs and reduce the total amount of loans. (Federal Student Aid is an office of the Education Department but already operates independently, thanks to a decision made nearly three decades ago by Republican lawmakers.)
Even if the department remains operational, Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, spearheaded by the tech mogul Elon Musk, could severely reduce its size and capabilities. DOGE posted Monday on X that it had ended 89 contracts with the Education Department worth $881 million. Most of those cuts fell within the Institute of Education Sciences.
Trump’s attempt to dismantle the department is another example of “unprecedented governmental overreach and intrusion” into higher education, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, or AAC&U.
Even if the department’s responsibilities and funds are transferred elsewhere rather than cut, “it’s not clear that there’s capacity to handle these enormous tasks,” she said.
It creates such disruption, chaos, and uncertainty.
Other Closure Attempts
Trump is far from the first Republican politician to try to eliminate the Education Department. In 1980, Ronald Reagan called the agency a “bureaucratic boondoggle” during his campaign against then-President Jimmy Carter, who had founded the department the previous year. Reagan later said he’d seek to close it as president.
In 1996, conservatives were united behind shuttering the department, but the idea was blocked by then-President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. More recently, in 2023, a Republican representative from Alabama introduced a bill that aimed to “abolish” the Education Department and transfer responsibility of Pell Grants and federal loans to the Treasury Department. That bill died in committee.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, introduced a bill this year that states simply: “The Department of Education shall terminate on December 31, 2026.” The bill hasn’t advanced further.
Trump in his first term proposed cutting $9.2 billion, or about 13 percent, of total federal funding to K-12 and higher education, but his cuts were not adopted by Congress. His administration also came up with a plan to merge the Education and Labor Departments, but that didn’t go anywhere, either.
This time around, Trump seems more intent on eliminating the department and cutting federal spending, said Patrick McGuinn, an associate professor of political science at Drew University who studies federal education policy.
“The pace and scope of change that we’ve seen in just the first few weeks of Trump’s administration indicates that he’s quite serious about doing some of these things,” McGuinn said.
Closing the department could complicate Trump’s education agenda, McGuinn added. In his first week in office, Trump issued executive orders that aimed to end diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the public and private sectors. Last week, he issued another order banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports.
To ensure those rules are enforced, Trump needs a government agency, McGuinn said.
“Same department,” McGuinn said, “but used for a different purpose.”
Pushback and Privacy
On Friday, about 20 House Democrats were barred from entering the Education Department’s building after gathering to demand an impromptu meeting with the acting secretary, Denise L. Carter, hoping to protest Trump’s plan for closure.
“A year ago, I’d be able to walk into this building and not be locked out,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost, Democrat of Florida, in a video posted to his X account. “This is what they’re doing. Elon is allowed in. But not you, not your elected representative, not parents, not students.”
Musk, who owns the social-media platform, responded to Frost by saying the Education Department “doesn’t exist.”
Musk came under fire last week when some of DOGE’s employees received access to Education Department databases containing confidential student data, including Social Security numbers, personal information needed to receive financial aid, and even family members’ immigration status.
That worried the University of California Student Association, a group representing the UC system’s 295,000 students. The association filed a lawsuit on Friday against Carter and the department to block the DOGE employees’ “unlawful ongoing, systematic, and continuous” access to student information.
Amid DOGE’s targeting, analytics data show a spike in downloads for the complaint form used to allege violations of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA.
After a judge intervened, the Education Department agreed to suspend DOGE’s permissions until at least February 17. The Federal Student Aid office published a statement asserting that its staff “have not engaged in any activities that would expose data through unauthorized or unlawful means.”
On Thursday, McMahon could also face questions about Trump’s orders banning diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and threatening cuts to grant funding; those moves have prompted lawsuits.
In an email to the campus community last weekend, Jeffrey P. Gold, president of the University of Nebraska system, provided guidance on grant cuts and implored faculty, staff, and students to continue conducting research. “As we work through this time of change, please continue to do what you do so well,” Gold wrote.
Pasquerella, the AAC&U president, advised colleges to keep an eye on executive actions but to focus time and energy on their institutional missions.
“It creates such disruption, chaos, and uncertainty,” Pasquerella said, “that people are spending a good deal of time focusing on putting out fires and how they can respond to the latest executive order, and not being able to focus on the day-to-day work.”
Dan Bauman, a Chronicle senior reporter, contributed reporting.
