The Education Department is planning to transfer TRIO and many other higher education programs to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”
Rather than moving the entire office, the department detailed a plan on Tuesday to shift certain projects and responsibilities to other agencies. All told, the department signed six agreements with four agencies to relocate a large number of projects.
For example, the Labor Department will take over most of the Department of Education’s higher education programs, including grants to support student success, historically black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions. Meanwhile, the State Department will handle Fulbright-Hays grants and grants administered by the Office of International and Foreign Language Education. Indian education and tribal college programs are being transferred to the Department of the Interior.
Under the agreement, other agencies will provide services to support the administration of the various programs they will now oversee and ensure compliance with federal rules. ED will transfer funds but continue to set budgets, standards and priorities for the granto program and manage recruiting and other human resources processes, among other activities.
Several offices that oversee these grant programs have suffered losses in recent rounds of layoffs, but any staff still administering these grant programs will be transferred to their respective receiving institutions. The Department of Education has also taken action to eliminate some grant programs that were being transferred, deeming them redundant, irrelevant or unconstitutional. Therefore, it’s unclear whether they will actually continue operations at the new location.
The agreements were signed on September 30, the day before the government shutdown. Education Department officials expect the transition will take some time.
“These partnerships really mark a big step forward in improving the management of selected programs, leveraging these partner agencies’ administrative expertise, experience working with relevant stakeholders, and streamlining the bureaucracy that ED has built up over decades,” the senior department official said in a news release Tuesday. “We believe this will provide better services to recipients, schools and families across the country.”
Republicans in Congress and conservative policy analysts generally praised Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s actions, while lobbyists representing institutions and left-leaning student advocacy groups argued the changes would create chaos and make it harder for federal funds to flow out.
The Office for Civil Rights, the Office of Federal Student Aid, or the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services are not affected by these agreements — at least for now, although there are rumors that they too may be moved. Secretary McMahon is still “exploring the best plan” for the offices, according to a senior department official.
Tracey Vitchers, executive director of It’s On Us, a group dedicated to combating sexual assault on campuses, said she expects the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights will eventually be transferred to the Justice Department.
“It’s not a question of if, it’s a matter of when,” she said. “[Tuesday’s announcement] It feels like a test balloon, will they [learn] They learn how to roll them out and apply them as they make more controversial decisions around their department’s responsibilities. “
McMahon first hinted at the sweeping announcement in a social media post on Tuesday morning, which included a video of the clock ticking. The moves are the most significant steps McMahon has taken beyond layoffs to comply with President Trump’s March executive order directing her to “close ED to the fullest extent permitted by law.”
White House spokesperson Liz Huston applauded the announcement, calling it “a bold, decisive action to put education back where it belongs — at the state and local levels.”
“The Trump administration is fully committed to doing what’s best for America’s students, which is why shrinking the bloated federal education bureaucracy while still ensuring the effective delivery of funding and essential programs is critical,” she said in a statement.
Transferring more than a dozen higher education grant programs to the Labor Department could help address America’s shortage of skilled workers, Education Department officials said in a news release.
“These grants will help students from all walks of life obtain the credentials and career training they need to thrive and contribute to the U.S. economy, and provide higher education institutions with resources to support innovative strategies for learning and workforce development,” the release states.
The department has turned over career, technical and adult education to the Labor Department as a trial run for the deal announced Tuesday. But Democrats and supporters in Congress denounced the plan as illegal and reiterated those concerns on Tuesday.
“This is yet another example of the Trump administration trying to circumvent the law and advance an agenda that harms students and the quality of their education,” said Jared Bass, senior vice president of education at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. “Only Congress has the power to eliminate the Department of Education. But office after office, program after program, layoff after layoff, this administration has been trying to undermine that authority.”
McMahon has also repeatedly stated that only Congress can completely shut down the department, but she noted that shutting down the department is different from abolishing the bureaucracy and co-managing operations with other cabinet-level departments.
Department officials noted Tuesday that policy and statutory oversight of the program remains the responsibility of ED staff.
“Under multiple statutes, the Department of Education has broad authority to contract with other federal agencies to procure services, and it has had this authority since its founding,” the official said, noting that the Department of Education has signed more than 200 interagency agreements over the years.
President Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon are working together to abolish ED.
Anna Money Tree/Getty Images
Tuesday’s announcement follows a tumultuous year for the department, which saw McMahon cut more than half its staff through two rounds of layoffs. A federal court has blocked the latest mass layoffs during the recent government shutdown, with President Trump agreeing to return affected employees to “employment status” administration as part of a deal to reopen the government.
But it’s unclear whether those employees will actually return to work. Several sources revealed Inside higher education The bill’s language could allow Trump to put employees on paid administrative leave until Jan. 30, when the bill is no longer in effect, and then resume administering pink slips.
Amid these cuts and other changes at the institution, which has been weakened under McMahon, several higher education experts say the recent 43-day shutdown shows why ED is not needed. Shifting grant programs and other responsibilities to other agencies could exacerbate concerns about the Department of Education’s future.
“This deeply unpopular administration lacks the votes in Congress to shut down ED,” said Kevin Carey, vice president of the New America Education and Jobs Project, a left-leaning think tank. “That’s why Secretary McMahon is creating a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine that outsources important projects to other agencies, wasting millions of taxpayer dollars. It’s like paying a contractor double to mow your lawn and then claiming you’ve cut your home maintenance budget. It makes no sense.”
