What Happens if the Education Department Shuts Down?

If the Education Department (ED) shuts down, what does that mean for education in America?

Public School Funding: Federal support accounts for about 14% of public school funds. The largest ED fund is Title I, receiving $18.4 billion in 2023, which distributes money to low-income school districts. Title I has bipartisan support according to NPR (Lean Left bias) and Jim Geraghty (Lean Right).

Student Loans: The ED oversees federal student loan programs, including distributing aid and managing loan repayments. Because the government owns these loans, dismantling the ED wouldn’t change borrowers’ financial obligation–which is as many as one in four adult Americans under the age of 40. Geraghty writes that “as dramatic as ‘abolish the Department of Education!’ sounds, it really means reassign the duties of the department to other parts of the government;” in this case, the Treasury Department. According to Newsweek (Center), though, eliminating the ED may impact forgiveness programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Driven Repayment plans. 

Students With Disabilities: The ED distributes public school funding to support the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which requires schools to design individualized education programs for eligible students with disabilities. Education Week (Center) writes that “contrary to what some users have claimed without evidence in social media posts,” neither President Donald Trump nor ED secretary Linda McMahon have proposed eliminating this program. However, per Education Week, losing the department may weaken federal efforts to enforce IDEA in public schools.

Curriculum: Trump often notes the need to remove “inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material” from schools as a reason to eliminate the ED. NPR (Lean Left) clarifies that the ED has no control over school curriculums, as the Every Student Succeeds Act, signed in 2015, “made it clear that it was up to states to determine what was taught in classrooms.”

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