Sergio Guerra, Sports Editor/Photographer
MARCH 21, 2025 – President Donald Trump plans to make well on his campaign promise to shut down the Department of Education. On Thursday, March 20, surrounded by young schoolchildren, the president signed an executive order directing Secretary Linda McMahon to begin eliminating the agency.
The Department of Education has already started downsizing in the two months since Trump took office, slashing its workforce in half. The executive order is the latest radical change that the Trump administration has brought to the American education system, with other shifts aimed at higher education as he cuts research funding and attempts to shift the culture of colleges and universities.
One of the most prominent duties of the Department of Education is the management of the $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio for higher education students. It also accounts for around 14% of the federal funding that public schools receive.
Congress established the Department of Education in 1979. As such, only Congress can entirely abolish the agency. However, Trump’s executive order calls for McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” Some core necessities will be preserved, as per Trump, such as Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants, and money for children with disabilities.
Republicans have long awaited the day that the Department of Education would shut down. As Stephen Collinson describes it, their position is that the agency is “a hotbed of liberal activism, a source of ‘woke’ social policies on diversity and inclusion and an ally of teachers’ unions, which are a foundation of the Democratic Party.”
The endeavor has proved challenging as the movement is incredibly unpopular with the American people and on the political front. According to The New York Times, “Multiple polls in the past month have shown that roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea.” The last time that an amendment was introduced to Congress to shutter the agency, 60 Republicans joined Democrats to oppose it.
Colleges and universities are incredibly reliant on federal funding and have reason for concern over the Trump administration’s radical shifts. Recent pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrations as well as allegations of antisemitism have put schools like Columbia University on Trump’s radar. President Trump has issued an ultimatum to Columbia to make drastic changes to reinstate $400 million in funding, including placing the school’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under academic receivership. In what The New York Times called a “watershed moment” for higher education, Columbia University has agreed to Trump’s demands, overhauling its protest and security policies and placing the department in question under receivership.
According to the AP, “Academic receivership is a rarely used practice that puts an academic department under the oversight of a professor or administrator outside the department.” It is usually handled internally and used to “fix” a department that has fallen into political or financial issues. However, Joan Scott, member of the academic freedom committee of the American Association of University Professors, states that “Receivership is a nice way of basically saying get rid of the department.” Although this is an action on one department in one school, it could quickly set a precedent and allow the federal government to manage higher education in a way it has not before.
The Trump administration is acting against specific students as well. Recently, the administration has been attempting to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the United States who recently graduated from Columbia University. Khalil helped lead protests against Israel’s war in Gaza.
With the proposed closure of the Department of Education and threats of financial droughts to universities, there is a clear shift in the way the current administration expects education to operate in the United States. Several university officials have spoken out to express their concern about the actions of the government, but the president is not lacking in support. When going to sign the executive order yesterday, Donald Trump sat next to children in school uniforms. He asked a young girl and boy if he should sign the order to dismantle the Department of Education. They both nodded eagerly.
References
Bender, M., Kanno-Youngs, Z., Montague, Z. (2025, March 19). Trump to sign order aimed at dismantling education department. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/us/politics/trump-education-department.html
Binkley, C., & Offenhartz, J. (2025, March 14). Trump demands unprecedented control at Columbia, alarming scholars and speech groups. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/columbia-university-mahmoud-khalil-ice-arrests-1921e26f6b5a8585ad5cbda790846324
Closson, T., Blinder, A., & Rosman, K. (2025, March 22). Columbia’s concessions to pro-Palestinian protesters mark a watershed moment. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/22/nyregion/columbia-trump-concessions-watershed.html
Collinson, S. (2025, March 21). Analysis: Trump delivers on a generational conservative goal, but it could be risky for Republicans as well as students | CNN Politics. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/21/politics/education-department-trump-executive-order-universities/index.html
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