Ever since the U.S. Department of Education was established more than 40 years ago, Republicans have vowed to eliminate it. However, many Republican leaders, including President Reagan, backed off those promises after failing to garner enough support for elimination.
This year has been different. President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon have steamrolled Congress, students and voters in their quest to go the furthest toward making good on their promise—a promise that now jeopardizes the education of millions of students in this country, including, but not limited to, students from low-income backgrounds and students of color, first-generation college students, and graduate students.
In announcing her latest steps to dismantle the Department of Education last month, McMahon said the effort to move entire ED offices to different federal agencies would ensure “federal taxpayer spending is supporting a world-class education system.” Instead of world-class education, we’re getting world-class bureaucratic chaos. Shipping off ED programs to other federal agencies will all but guarantee that states, colleges and universities lose the federal expertise and capacity they count on to address student needs, continue critical research, share best practices and receive key funding on time.
A major part of the effort to dismantle the department involves sending some major higher education programs from ED to the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) within the Department of Labor. Programs moving to ETA include the TRIO programs that help low-income students prepare for, access and complete higher education, including graduate education; grant programs focused on supporting historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions; and the Postsecondary Student Success Grant program.
ETA is a sprawling agency within DOL with expertise administering programs from employment and training services to foreign labor certification, unemployment insurance and more. The office manages a grant portfolio that supports employment and skills training for adults and young people, and the vast majority of that funding flows to states and then to localities to administer workforce development programs.
At first blush, it could seem logical for a federal agency that provides education-related services to take over some postsecondary programs. Yet while workforce development and job training are core functions of ETA, it is not expert in, nor is it equipped to take on, some of the largest higher education programs in the country (which is to say nothing of the many PK–12 education programs being transferred to ETA as well).
Putting aside the numerous legal issues at play here, the Trump administration’s plans will likely earn a failing grade in practice. That’s because removing some of the largest and most consequential postsecondary programs, including programs helping students from underserved communities access higher education, from an office with trained and experienced staff to a DOL office without the resources or capabilities to take on this task is like hitching a wagon to a house cat. The house cat might pull as hard as it can, but the wagon is not moving.
ETA helps workers get a foothold in the labor market, and DOL is expert in supporting these efforts on the ground, providing technical assistance to its stakeholders and advancing best practices. But the programs the office is responsible for have little in common with federal education programs that are designed to get students prepared to excel in and graduate from higher education. For starters, ETA’s staff specializes in workforce development strategies—not in deploying strategies to prepare students for higher education, improve college completion rates, expand college pathways and break down barriers to college access for students from underserved backgrounds and communities.
DOL does not have the requisite experience, nor is it resourced, to administer the technical aspects of the postsecondary programs coming under its purview. It isn’t set up to send money to ED stakeholders, or to ensure programmatic accountability. Indeed, a recent internal ED report highlighted how the hasty transfer of a single program to DOL over the summer very nearly caused a disruption in funding streams. We saw during the government shutdown and summer what happens when funding is delayed—programs shutter and staff are furloughed or fired.
DOL also lacks the experience needed to answer questions of a legal or technical nature from ED stakeholders, or to provide guidance on how grantees can best serve students within the context of program statutes, guidelines, regulations and best practices. Given the lack of overlap in terms of relationships, technical expertise, program operations and more, it simply will not be prepared to handle the vast needs of colleges, students and communities.
By moving these programs, the administration is not just putting colleges and states on notice that funding could end—as outlined in Project 2025— it is also telegraphing its carelessness when it comes to the students reliant on these programs. This new effort comes on the heels of months of attacks by the Trump administration on federal agencies, which have hobbled both ED and DOL, leaving them unprepared to take on this mammoth task.
While McMahon has said this move will reduce bureaucracy, we should all be skeptical about the secretary’s promises. The more likely scenario is that Trump and his allies are laying a bureaucratic mess at the feet of states and colleges that now have to worry about whether potential disruptions in federal funding will compromise key programs supporting student success. Project 2025 is clear: The next step is asking Congress to eliminate these programs entirely. No one should expect McMahon to veer off script.
This may be why even Republican lawmakers who have long expressed their desire to eliminate the Department of Education are now distancing themselves from the administration’s actions, for fear of the inevitable repercussions. Sometimes what makes for a good campaign talking point does not translate into solid policy.
Even before this dismantling, college students have been dealing with the fallout from the Trump administration’s approach to higher education policy, as it has moved to dismantle research and data capacity, freeze essential funding, threaten Pell Grants, and impose unconstitutional controls on universities. Students cannot afford even more disruptions to their efforts to simply get a quality education.
We already know what it looks like when the Trump administration promises efficiency—it looks like DOGE data breaches, numerous fumbled federal employee firings and rehirings, and dozens of court losses as it tries to defend its policies. Trump and his allies never seem to do their homework, so why should we let them experiment on students?
