1. United States
2. N.J.
3. Letter

Since the inauguration, the Trump administration has aimed to eliminate the Department of Education, a plan forecast in Project 2025. While it requires an act of Congress to officially eliminate a federal agency, the administration has taken numerous actions to slowly dismantle the agency’s programs and workforce, thereby evading congressional oversight. They have announced plans to transfer key responsibilities of the Education Department to other federal agencies: Administration of international programs will move to the State Department, K-12 education will move to the Labor Department, and control of the agency’s $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio will move to the Treasury Department. Child care programs and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) will move to HHS under RFK, Jr., and the department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) will move to the Justice Department, which has focused on Trump’s anti-DEI and anti-LGBTQ+ political priorities. In accordance with the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” they proposed a new federal rule to redefine certain professional degrees, including programs for nurses, physician assistants, educators, and social workers. This change will subsequently decrease the student loan caps for these degree programs. During the government shutdown, the team that oversees special education services for 7.5 million children with disabilities was nearly eliminated. The White House also gutted the teams that oversee civil rights enforcement and federal funding for low-income students. These changes would slash federal funding for public schools, eliminate support for students with disabilities, end enforcement of civil rights protections in education, and abolish federal student loan and workforce development programs. This is a direct attack on students, teachers, and families—one that only benefits right-wing extremists who seek to privatize education.