United States Department of Education

The United States Department of Education is a cabinet-level department of the United States government, originating in 1980. The department began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979. An earlier iteration was formed in 1867 but was quickly demoted to the Office of Education a year later.
The Department of Education is administered by the United States secretary of education. In 2021 it had more than 4,000 employees – the smallest staff of the Cabinet agencies – and a 2024 budget of $268 billion, up from $14 billion when it was established in 1979. In 2025, the department's budget was about four percent of the total US federal spending.
Its official abbreviation is ED ("DOE" refers to the United States Department of Energy) but is also abbreviated informally as "DoEd".
On March 11, 2025, seven weeks after Donald Trump's second term began and Trump founded the Department of Government Efficiency, the department announced it would be firing nearly half of its workforce. The Trump administration signed an order on March 20, 2025, aimed at closing the department to the maximum extent allowed by law; the department cannot be entirely closed without the approval of Congress, which created it.
The department identifies four key functions:
The Department of Education is a member of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and works with federal partners to ensure proper education for homeless and runaway youth in the United States.
In 1867, President Andrew Johnson signed legislation to create a Department of Education. It was seen as a way to collect information and statistics about the nation's schools and provide advice to schools in the same way the Department of Agriculture helped farmers. The department was originally proposed by Henry Barnard and leaders of the National Teachers Association, renamed the National Education Association. Barnard served as the first commissioner of education. He resigned when the office was reconfigured as a bureau in the Department of Interior, known as the United States Office of Education due to concerns it would have too much control over local schools.
Over the years, the office remained relatively small, operating under different titles and housed in various agencies, including the United States Department of the Interior and the former United States Department of Health Education and Welfare (DHEW), now the United States Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). In 1920, an unsuccessful attempt at creating a Department of Education, headed by a secretary of education, came with the Smith–Towner Bill.
In 1939, the organization, then a bureau, was transferred to the Federal Security Agency, where it was renamed as the Office of Education. After World War II, President Dwight D. Eisenhower promulgated "Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1953". The Federal Security Agency was abolished and most of its functions were transferred to the newly formed DHEW.
In 1979, President Carter advocated for creating a cabinet-level Department of Education. Carter's plan was to transfer most of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's education-related functions to the Department of Education. Carter also planned to transfer the education-related functions of the departments of Defense, Justice, Housing and Urban Development, and Agriculture, as well as a few other federal entities. Among the federal education-related programs that were not proposed to be transferred were Headstart, the Department of Agriculture's school lunch and nutrition programs, the Department of the Interior's Native Americans' education programs, and the Department of Labor's education and training programs.
Upgrading Education to cabinet-level status in 1979 was opposed by many in the Republican Party, who saw the department as unconstitutional, arguing that the Constitution does not mention education, and deemed it an unnecessary and illegal federal bureaucratic intrusion into local affairs. However, others saw the department as constitutional under the Commerce Clause, and that the funding role of the department is constitutional under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The National Education Association supported the bill, while the American Federation of Teachers opposed it.
In 1979, the Office of Education had 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $12 billion. Congress appropriated to the Department of Education an annual budget of $14 billion and 17,000 employees when establishing the Department of Education. During the 1980 presidential campaign, Gov. Reagan called for the total elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, severe curtailment of bilingual education, and massive cutbacks in the federal role in education. Once in office, President Reagan significantly reduced its budget, but in 1988, perhaps to reduce conflict with Congress, he decided to change his mind and ask for an increase from $18.4 billion to $20.3 billion.
The 1980 Republican Party platform called for the elimination of the Department of Education created under Carter, and President Ronald Reagan promised during the 1980 presidential election to eliminate it as a cabinet post, but he was not able to do so with a Democratic House of Representatives. In the 1982 State of the Union Address, he pledged: "The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education."
In 1984, the GOP dropped the call for elimination from its platform. With the election of President George H. W. Bush in 1988, the Republican position evolved in almost lockstep with that of the Democrats, with Goals 2000 a virtual joint effort.
In 1994, after the Newt Gingrich–led "revolution" took control of both houses of Congress, federal control of and spending on education soared. That trend continued unabated despite the fact that the Republican Party made abolition of the department a cornerstone of its 1996 platform and campaign promises, calling it an inappropriate federal intrusion into local, state, and family affairs. The GOP platform read: "The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning."
In 2000, the Republican Liberty Caucus passed a resolution to seek to abolish the Department of Education.
The George W. Bush administration made reform of federal education a key priority of the president's first term. In 2008 and 2012, presidential candidate Ron Paul campaigned in part on an opposition to the department.
Under President George W. Bush, the department primarily focused on elementary and secondary education, expanding its reach through the No Child Left Behind Act. The department's budget increased by $14 billion between 2002 and 2004, from $46 billion to $60 billion.
In March 2007, President George W. Bush signed into law H.R. 584, which designates the ED Headquarters building as the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building.
In December 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reauthorized the Elementary Secondary Education Act, which replaced the No Child Left Behind Act.
The department's 2023 budget was $274 billion, which included funding for children with disabilities (IDEA), pandemic recovery, early childhood education, Pell Grants, Title I, work assistance, among other programs. This budget was down from $637.7 billion in 2022.
In March 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which would begin the dismantling of the Department of Education, seeking to fulfill decades of conservative ambition to eliminate the agency, but raising new questions for public schools and parents. The White House earlier said the agency would continue to oversee "critical function" like student loans.
In February 2025, the Department of Education established an "end-DEI" portal to take complaints about DEI programs in schools. The administration also warned of cuts in federal funding for universities that continued with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.
In March 2025, the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights announced that 60 universities were under investigation for allegations of violations related to antisemitism. The investigations were sent under the authority of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act which bans any institution receiving federal funds from discriminating on race, color and national origin. The investigations came during mounting pressure on university administrations to rein in pro-Palestine protests and the Trump administration canceling $400 million in grant funding and contracts to Columbia over failure to quash antisemitism on campus. Columbia was named as one of the universities under investigation along with Northwestern University, Portland State University, University of California, Berkeley, Harvard University, and four other Ivies. This was followed by an investigation of 45 universities for allegedly using racial preferences.
Republican attempts to close the agency date back to the 1980s. Partisanship over the department has been rife since the start, from progressive-leaning teachers' unions who organized against President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policies, to conservative Republican presidential candidates in 2016 who ran against the Common Core standards elevated by President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" program. Closing efforts gained critical momentum during the coronavirus pandemic, after a parental rights movement grew out of a backlash to school shutdowns. There was also opposition to progressive policies that promoted certain education standards and inclusive policies for LGBTQ students which, it was contended, undermined parental rights.
Project 2025 deals heavily with the closure of the Department of Education, mass privatization of public schools, and ending subsidized and free school lunches. Project 2025 also seeks to create a conservative school curriculum for all public schools. The plan also includes provisions for the layoffs of millions of public employed teachers. Trump's policies have been compared to Project 2025.
Multiple polls in February and March 2025 showed that roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea. It is broadly opposed by educators who believe the federal government has historically played an important role in American education. The position of the National Education Association (NEA), representing 2.8 million American teachers, was that stripping the department of its resources and mission would negatively impact the millions of students in low-income communities who need educational services and support.
On March 3, 2025, Linda McMahon was sworn in as the nation's 13th Secretary of Education. Trump emphasized that McMahon's primary objective would be to close the Department of Education, stating, "I want her to put herself out of a job." McMahon echoed Trump's comments, stating that the department was not needed when asked directly if the United States needed the department.
On March 20, 2025, Trump signed an executive order directing the secretary of education to "facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities". However, the department cannot be closed without the approval of Congress, which created it. NBC News said, "Given their narrow majority, Republicans would need Democratic support to do that, which would make it unlikely for such a bill to pass."
In February 2025, US Department of Education offered its staff incentives to resign or retire early. In March 2025, the department announced a plan to reduce its workforce by half.
Based on a preliminary review of the layoffs that were ordered, the majority of cuts were seen in the Federal Student Aid office which oversees financial aid disbursement and student loans, and the Office for Civil Rights, which protects students and teachers from discrimination. While current Education Secretary McMahon has claimed that congressionally appropriated monies such as financial aid will not be affected by the plan to downsize or close the department, but staff turnover could create multiple problems for those receiving aid.
The Trump administration has promised that formula funding for schools, funding such as Title 1 for high poverty schools, and the Rural Education Achievement Program (REAP) which are protected by law would be preserved. However, nearly all statisticians and data experts who work with the program would be affected by the layoffs and downsizing of the department, as the department went from over 100 people to just three workers.
The department oversees the lending of tens of billions of dollars in loans to students and parents and oversees the collections process of the roughly $1.6 trillion in outstanding loans for over 40 million borrowers as of March 2025. If the department were to be closed, it has been theorized by experts other federal entities such as the Treasury Department would take over the responsibilities of managing the loans. On March 21, 2025 it was announced by Trump that the management of the entire federal student loan portfolio and the other "special needs" programs overseen by the department would be moved to other departments. Trump specified that the Small Business Administration would take over the responsibility for the loans and the Health and Human Services office would take on the special needs programs.
Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and a group of Democratic senators spoke out against the mass layoffs that were seen in March 2025 and urged Education Secretary McMahon to reinstate employees that were laid off, in a joint letter. Representative Bobby Scott, the ranking member on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce raised claims that the dismantling of the department would "exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, rural students and English as a Second Language students at risk".
Derrick Johnson, the president and CEO of the NAACP, raised allegations that Trump was dismantling the basic functions of democracy, while pushing for layoffs and attempting to close departments such as the Department of Education.
For 2024, the US Department of Education's budget was approximately $268 billion with $79,052,238 in discretionary spending. The department currently holds and maintains approximately $1.7 trillion in federal student loan debt.