Trump is moving to gut the Department of Education — here’s what it does

President Trump took dramatic action Thursday to inch closer to fulfilling a four-and-a-half-decade-old conservative dream of abolishing the Department of Education, which was created in 1979 under the late former President Jimmy Carter.

While the Department of Education has one of the smallest staffs of cabinet-level departments, conservative critics have long ripped it as an unnecessary bureaucracy with an oversized budget.

Still, the Trump administration has acknowledged that the Education Department has some important responsibilities such as its work on student loans and administering Pell Grants that it wants to retain.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “This president is finally taking much-needed action to return education to where it belongs — and that’s to educators closest to students in their classrooms.”

Last year, the Department of Education had a $268 billion budget, which amounted to about 4% of federal outlays. There are 17 offices in the department. When Trump took office, it had about 4,133 workers, now the administration claims there are about 2,183 on staff.

Here’s what the Department of Education does:

Financial aid

The most expensive responsibility of the department is to oversee financial aid to students pursuing higher education, which is done primarily via the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA).

FSA oversees Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the form used by prospective students to apply for aid. The Biden administration overhauled FASFA but botched the rollout in late 2023 and early 2024, which led to significant delays for applicants at the time.

Last fiscal year, FSA doled out over $120.8 billion worth of various grants and loans to some 9.9 million students.

That includes about $33 billion worth of Pell Grants or subsidies for low-income and middle-income students pursuing an undergraduate degree.

To date, there are over $1.6 trillion worth of federal student loans still active.

Funding for public schools

While the overwhelming majority of public school funding comes from the state and local level, the Department of Education sends some money to those institutions as well.

Much of this comes from Title I money, which includes somewhere around $18 billion for schools in lower-income communities.

There’s also some $15 billion in funding from IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) to help schools serve students with disabilities.

Civil rights

To safeguard schools from various kinds of discrimination, the Education Department’s Office on Civil Rights (OCR) conducts investigations into institutions.

OCR helps enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars institutions that receive federal funds from engaging in discrimination; Title IX, which focuses on sex-based discrimination; protections under the Americans with Disabilities Act; age discrimination and more.

Trump’s team has recently used OCR’s Title IX enforcement duties to put pressure on schools that receive federal funding to safeguard women’s sports.

Education research and student test scores

In the early 2000s, the Bush administration established the Institute of Education Sciences to evaluate best practices on student instruction.

IES disburses some grants to further research on education practices.

The IES is also tasked with running the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), more commonly known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”

That assessment is used to gauge how students across the country are performing in important subjects like math, reading and science.

Critics have pointed to the results in the “Nation’s Report Card” over recent decades in their arguments that the Department of Education’s policies aren’t working.

Adult education

In addition to its work with K-12 students and higher education, the department also runs the Division of Adult Education and Literacy, which assists with job training and retraining programs.

A lot of this takes the form of grants to states to help adults with career and technical education as well as community college options.

Special education

Via the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS), the Department of Education works on initiatives to help students and adults with disabilities.

This includes IDEA. Much of the department’s work for students with disabilities also takes the form of grants and funding for various programs across the country.

Administrative work

Lastly, the Department of Education has teams of people dedicated to certain types of administrative work, including the Office of the Chief Information Officer; Office of Communications and Outreach; Office of the Deputy Secretary; Office of Finance and Operations; Office of the General Counsel; Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs; Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development; Office of the Secretary; and the Office of the Under Secretary.

Those nine offices in the department help with financial and logistical issues such as carrying out the secretary’s vision and developing long-term strategic plans.

What the Department of Education doesn’t do

Defenders of the Department of Education have stressed it merely exists to provide support to K-12 and higher education institutions across the country.

Under federal law, including the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act, the department is limited from weighing in on school curriculum.

The department can help fund research and take action against schools for flouting civil rights law, but the states and local governments are largely tasked with overseeing their own curriculum.

Prior to the Department of Education, the federal government handled education through other agencies such as the Office of Education, which was once housed under the Department of the Interior until the 1970s.

Shortly after the Department of Education was created, critics such as former President Ronald Reagan called for abolishing it.

Reagan later backed off his push to eliminate the then-nascent department due to a lack of traction in Congress.