The national Department of Education is something President Donald Trump wants to end, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t use it while it’s still in power.
” We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible”, Trump said at a White House signing ceremony on Thursday with a host of GOP rulers in attendance. It’s doing us no fine, they say.
The White House clarified that the company will continue to exist, albeit “much smaller,” despite the government’s commitment to heart the office, according to press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Features like Pell Grants and student loans” will be” under the purview of the Education Department, according to Lake, but Trump announced on Friday that the Small Business Administration will handle student loans in its place.
But Trump is still doing a bit with the slimmed-down Education Department, despite of his commitment to shut it down.  ,
The Trump Education Department is looking into colleges for admitted race-based software, issuing a warning to schools about how to combat racism, has launched a website for parents and students to record race- or sex-based discrimination, and has canceled$ 400 million in grants for its handling of pro-Palestinian protests.
Those steps and some outline an aggressive strategy for Trump to utilize a ministry he’s officially trying to shut down.
Race-based software
The department merely announced it was looking into 45 colleges, some of which are among the most prominent in the country, over their alleged inability to stop racial preferences in graduate programs. D. software.
By teaming with” The PhD Project,” a group that provides graduate students with information and marketing prospects for obtaining a Ph, it sent a notice to each of the organizations that they might be violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. but restricts registration based on race. The studies signal an extreme part for the office actually as Trump vows to cut it.
While colleges were given a March 31 date to explain their relations to the organization, some have already stepped up to reduce relations with The PhD Project, concerned that Trump will offend them.
The PhD Project clarified that account is now available to everyone, and stated in a statement that its goal is to” make a broader talent pipeline of current and future company leaders.” Even if accidentally, that approach may take the plan into conformity with Trump’s anti-DE I push.  ,
Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty, was present at the drafting of Trump’s professional order. She argues that while legal privileges protection could be handled more efficiently at other companies, such as the Department of Justice, it should be used by the Education Department while it exists” to protect the rights of British citizens”.
Cutting down on individual school funding
Trump is using the department to further his policy objectives by cutting funding for individual schools as well.
Columbia, a high-profile Ivy League school located in New York City, saw$ 400 million in federal grants cut after portions of the school were taken over by anti-Israel protesters last spring. That action was in line with a Trump campaign promise to end funding for antisemitism-focused schools.
Other schools across the nation, almost all of which rely on federal funding and won’t want to do anything that threatens it, are likely to be interested in the Columbia cuts. Further signaling its focus on antisemitism, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights issued warnings to 60 colleges and universities that there would be consequences if they failed to protect Jewish students on their respective campuses.
A Columbia University spokesman earlier this month disclosed to the Washington Examiner that the university is collaborating with the federal government to restore its funding.
Columbia, which is privately held, has$ 5 billion in federal grant commitments that it will continue to use, giving the Trump administration significant authority to compel compliance with its policy objectives.  ,
Trump paused funding for another Ivy League institution, University of Pennsylvania, because of its policy against transgender athletes, despite the fact that the institution is his alma mater.  ,
The Trump administration is already mixing its efforts through various agencies as it looks toward a post-Education Department future. The Department of Education and the Departments of Justice, Health and Human Services, and the General Services Administration collaborated to cut Columbia’s funding, which could make it simpler to carry on those efforts if the Education Department were gone.  ,
Anti-DE I portal
Another way that the Trump Education Department’s simplified system of instruction is being used is through a de-DE I portal, which the agency launched in late February. The portal can be found at EndDEI. Ed. Gov states that “schools should be focused on learning.”
The Education Department will be able to identify investigation areas based on reports submitted through the portal.
The portal was launched just before a Feb. 28 deadline that the Trump administration set for K-12 schools to end DEI practices or run the risk of losing federal funding.  ,
The U.S. Department of Education’s website states that it is” committed to ensuring all students have access to meaningful learning free of divisive ideologies and indoctrination.” ” This submission form is an outlet for students, parents, teachers, and the broader community to report illegal discriminatory practices at institutions of learning. The Department of Education will use community feedback to look for potential investigation areas.
These investigations will presumably be handled for the time being out of the Education Department, but theoretically could also be handled at the Justice Department.  ,
Similar initiatives have been taken in the past, both at the state and federal levels. gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA ) set up a “divisive concepts” tip line soon after taking office in 2022 after winning an upset victory by campaigning on support for parents rights in education and opposition to critical race theory.  ,
In order for students to file free speech complaints on campus, it established a tip line in the final days of the first Trump administration. That effort was scuttled by the Biden administration, but it appears this one will remain even as Trump moves to shut down the Education Department.  ,
Back to the fundamentals
” We need to get back to the basics of public education”, Justice said. That results in less money being spent in Washington and more money going to the neighborhood public school systems.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has also asserted that this is true for the political right, and that a shuttered education department would mean that the policy would be made more accountable to the students and parents it serves.
” Better education is closest to the kids, with parents, with local superintendents, with local school boards”, McMahon said on Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle. ” I believe we’ll see our students ‘ scores rise when we can educate them with parental input as well,” he said.
Trump has made the promise for years to “return” education to the states, giving authority to each state’s department or agency in charge of public education.
” We’ll be able to cut]federal spending on ] education in half and get much better education in some of the states”, Trump said last June in Philadelphia. ” We’ll receive the best education anywhere in the world,” he declares.
Trump claimed that the United States spends more per pupil than any other nation, but that” we’re at the bottom of every list.” He asked,” What the hell do you have to lose”?
Does it matter whether the Department of Education’s financial and civil rights functions are located within the Department of Education or another organization if they continue to exist?
There may be a tension between addressing antisemitism at universities or toxic, race-based dogmas at some colleges and downsizing the department’s staff, according to Frederick Hess, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ” If you took down the website and took the name off the building tomorrow, and Congress voted to abolish it, all of the various programs would still be there. These functions simply exist somewhere else.
Hess contends that the Education Department’s closure is justified because of the role it typically performs under Democratic presidents.
” The only reason the DoE itself is significant is because it has operated as a one-stop shop for Democratic interest groups”, Hess said.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who referred to the department as a” slush fund for teachers unions,” supports its elimination.
There is still a debate over whether shifting the Education Department’s main responsibilities to other organizations amounts to” shuffling chairs around on the Titanic,” according to Jim Blew, co-founder of the Defense of Freedom Institute.
” That’s not what’s happening here”, he said. ” Because we’re also talking about changing the way the federal government plays its part.”
Regardless of who is in charge, the 50 state-level departments of education will handle the money in fundamentally different ways than a national-level agency and will be more productive with that funding as well, Blew contends.
Yet even if all of these functions can be handled elsewhere, closing the department permanently would require an act of Congress, which will be a very tough climb even with Republicans controlling both chambers at the moment. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA ) claims he is “fully supportive” of shutting down the Education Department, but the GOP would need Democrats to support it in order to get rid of the Senate filibuster, which will be a difficult sell no matter what.
OVER “RACE-BASED” PROGRAMS, THE TRUMP EDUCATION DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATES 45 COLLEGES
If Trump does not fully shutter the Department of Education, it could be ramped right back up to full strength by a Democratic president as early as January 2029.
Hess remarked that there are limitations on what executive action alone can accomplish, and that this is appropriate. With Congress out of the picture, long-term change is likely to be much more modest than it might be otherwise, to the extent that all of this is about executive or DOGE [ Department of Government Efficiency ] doings.
