Throughout his 2024 presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to abolish the Department of Education and distribute its key programs to other government agencies, citing a desire to return control over education to the states.
One function of the ED is managing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. In 2023, the ED awarded $29.7 billion in grants, oversaw a loan portfolio — the total value of all loans still currently active — of over $1.6 trillion and issued $83.3 billion in loans through FAFSA, according to the Fiscal Year 2023 Federal Student Aid Annual Report. Another function of the department is to provide funding to public schools.
Republican Senator Mike Rounds has proposed the Returning Education to Our States Act in Congress, which proposes eliminating the ED and distributing its functions to other departments. According to the act, the Department of the Treasury would take over the loan and grant programs. Federal K-12 funding would be sent directly to states as block grants — flexible annual money for the state to spend on specific programs or services.
College and Career Readiness Counselor Jim Allen (he/him) said he is mostly concerned about the process of transitioning the ED’s responsibility to other departments. The 2024 FAFSA Simplification Act attempted to make applying for aid easier and provide more money for low-income families but instead caused huge delays and technical issues that prevented colleges from granting financial aid to students. Given this rocky history, Allen said he doesn’t trust the ED changes. However, while he said he’s not a fan of it, he doesn’t think it’s going to destroy education.
“Biggest concern within how this rolls out and how it rolled out last year — if they do something like that — is that the folks who get hurt are typically the folks who are furthest away from educational justice,” Allen said.
Northshore School Board Director Hân Trần (she/they) also said she is worried about the rollout since dismantling the ED may cause a slowdown while waiting for the other departments to learn their new responsibilities. However, she said that redistributing resources is very different from eliminating parts of the department.
“The Department of Education being dismantled does not mean public education is going away. A majority of our funding for public education comes from the state and local dollars — tax dollars and levies,” Trần said.
Nevertheless, Allen said that if school funding becomes primarily state and local, it will be inequitable as some areas have more money than others. He said that the purpose of federal funding is to provide financial aid to even out the playing field for lower-income families and underrepresented populations.
“(Title I schools) get federal aid to be able to provide educational standards similar to a district like ours, where there’s plenty of money and people support education,” Allen said.
Trần said that since the report from Trump’s proposed presidential advisory commission “Government of Efficiency” — which would include assessments, recommendations to improve, implementation strategies and an analysis of the impacts of government inefficiencies — is expected to be released on July 4, 2026, any major changes to FAFSA would likely take place after the report is released. Additionally, they said that dismantling the ED would likely require a supermajority — 60/40 vote — in Congress, which is unlikely.
Allen said that despite the uncertainty of the situation, he has faith that changes will be slow and relatively painless. Above all, he doesn’t see a world where the U.S. doesn’t offer financial aid for college.
“Education is a giant ship, and giant ships don’t turn quickly, and as much as there’s talk and all those things, I’m hoping and don’t believe we’re going to experience a traumatic shifting of policy and overall attitude towards education,” Allen said. “Changes that do happen, whether we like them or don’t like them, will probably happen fairly slowly.”
