Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, February 5. Eric Kelderman wrote today’s Briefing, with reporting from Maddie Khaw. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

Chaos coming to the Education Department

President Trump’s effort to ravage the federal work force is now zeroing in on the U.S. Department of Education, according to several news accounts. During the presidential campaign, Trump repeated his desire to close the department and is reportedly considering an executive order that would ask Congress to fulfill that promise.

The full details of the administration’s order have yet to emerge, but several elements seem clear, based on the reporting so far. What this means for colleges is that uncertainty will rule, for the foreseeable future.

Closing the department requires congressional action, which remains highly unlikely. The department was created by law and several of its functions are required by statute, including the Office of Federal Student Aid, which oversees the direct student-loan program and Pell Grants, and the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates allegations of discrimination, among other things.

Securing legislation to completely shut down the department would require 60 votes in the Senate and a majority of the House, where the GOP has only narrow majorities.

Jobs are already being cut. Dozens of department staff who worked on initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion have already been dismissed. Even without legislation, the newly created “Department of Government Efficiency,” run by the billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk, is already considering what Education Department functions could be shuttered or moved to other agencies.

There are also reports that Musk’s team has been given access to the department’s database of federal financial aid, raising questions about data security.

For now there are more questions than answers. How far can the administration go? The Trump team is moving quickly and seems intent on pushing the limits of executive authority. The federal courts may have other ideas, but court rulings take time. The details of an executive order could even change before a ruling is issued.

At the same time, Trump’s nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, has yet to be confirmed or even considered by the Senate. There is speculation that any executive order will wait until that process is complete. But assuming McMahon is successful, how will she feel about running a department — already the smallest cabinet agency — that has been decimated and demoralized?

Congressional Republicans acknowledge that abolishing the department is unlikely, but so far they support deep staff and program cuts.

• “If there’s a bad program, bad department or agency within the Department of Education, if there’s bad regulation, I hope we see plenty of KOs,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, urging McMahon to be aggressive in her role. Walberg, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, spoke Monday at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center.

One potential roadblock for the administration may be state and local leaders, since they will be most directly affected by the fallout.

• “Don’t think, ‘Oh, we’re going to save the government a whole lot of money if we close the department down,’” said Bill Haslam, former Republican governor of Tennessee. The department’s expenditures are a “tiny drop” of water in a sea of federal spending, he said at the same Bipartisan Policy Center event in Washington, D.C.

The bigger picture: Cutting jobs and programs will likely do little to reduce the cost of individual Education Department programs, and even less to make those programs “efficient.”

If anything was learned from the Biden administration, it’s that too few staff were on hand to manage the overhaul of the federal financial-aid application, causing widespread confusion among colleges and their students. Voters may not always have warm, fuzzy feelings about the Education Department, but few will want further disruptions in accessing the grants and loans they need to pay tuition.

Read more:

• What Will Trump’s Presidency Mean for Higher Ed?
• What if a President Really Did Shut Down the Dept. of Education?
• A Brief History of GOP Attempts to Kill the Education Dept.

Quick hits

• NIH resumes grant reviews: The National Institutes of Health had shut down meetings of study sections on January 22, causing widespread confusion about if and when they would resume. The meetings are used to consider whether to financially support certain research projects. (STAT)
• Trump officials hunt for trigger words in scientific grants: Even as federal grant money begins to flow, about 10,000 grants have been flagged because they include terms that may conflict with the president’s directive to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. (Nature)
• Lawsuit alleges U. of California system uses racial preference in admissions: Asian American and white students are being displaced by Black and Hispanic applicants, according to a complaint from a group of high-school and college students represented by conservative activists and lawyers associated with President Trump. (Reuters)
• Iowa Republicans propose new bills to overhaul curriculum: Conservatives who control the Legislature are seeking to standardize general-education requirements at the state’s three public universities and prohibit any courses that include instruction in diversity, equity, and inclusion. At the same time, they are proposing a “school of intellectual freedom.” The state already has a law eliminating DEI staff and offices at the universities. (Iowa Public Radio, The Des Moines Register)
• New Mexico considers more oversight of college leaders: In the wake of a spending scandal at Western New Mexico University, the state’s attorney general is proposing a constitutional amendment defining the responsibilities of public governing boards. If board members violate legal or ethical requirements, they could be removed or face civil penalties under the attorney general’s plan. Proposed legislation would also give state officials more authority to review large contracts. (KRQE)
  

Stat of the day

73 percent

That’s the share of Americans who say they are dissatisfied with the quality of public education, according to the results of a Gallup poll out today. Only the nation’s moral and ethical climate, and efforts to deal with poverty and homelessness fared worse.

Comings and goings

• Robert J. Jones, chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named president of the University of Washington.
• Daniel Jasper, vice president for academic affairs at William Jewell College, in Missouri, has been named provost at Millsaps College, in Mississippi.
• Elizabeth Smith, dean of the faculty at Dartmouth College, will step down and return to the faculty.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

“‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers,” Emily Dickenson wrote, and sometimes the little birds that carry the tune are the college students.

Frequently, I hear college leaders and faculty talk about the positive energy they get from just being on campus and interacting with the young folk. If you want/need a taste of that, watch this Instagram reel created by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where students simply walked up to a mic and shared one good thing that happened to them that day.