During his campaign President Trump promised to dismantle the Department of Education (ED), claiming he wanted to return responsibility back to the States to which he signed an executive order. Last week, progress was made on this goal when the Department of Education announced several new partnerships that would outsource 6 departmental functions to other government agencies.
Just two days before this announcement, in an Op-Ed for U.S. News and World Report, Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon shared that the recent government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history – 43-days, “showed every family how unnecessary the federal education bureaucracy is to their children’s education”. She cited evidence that students continued to go to class, teachers were still paid and there were no disruptions to sports or bus routes, that these events were evidence for the argument to dismantle the Department of Ed.
What’s Happening Now at the Department of Education
First, it’s important to note that to eliminate ED would require an act of Congress and that would need 60 votes in the Senate, something the Trump Administration cannot achieve right now. So instead, they are outsourcing pieces of the Department of Ed across various other departments within the federal government. Officially, they are creating partnerships between the Department of Ed and other government agencies, whereby, the other agencies would execute the needed tasks, and ED would manage the effort.
The idea was tested earlier this year in July, when the Workforce Development Partnership was created. This partnership between the Department of Labor (DOL) and ED handed over responsibilities from the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education to the DOL. McMahan deemed this effort successful stating, “we believe that other department functions could benefit from similar collaborations.” Her comment a prelude to the recently announced 6 additional partnerships with 4 different government agencies.
The 6 New Partnerships
In a press release on November 18, 2025 the U.S. Department of Education announced the following new agency partnerships in their effort to break up federal bureaucracy:
1.The Department of Labor (DOL) will be a partner for Elementary and Secondary Education.
They will help administer federal K-12 programs, work to align K-12 better with workforce and college programs to better prepare students for the workforce and/or college.
2.The Department of Labor will be a partner for Postsecondary Education
Building on K-12 efforts, this partnership will also focus on helping prepare students for the workforce. DOL will help administer grants and manage grant programs and provide technical assistance.
3.The Department of the Interior (DOI) will be a partner for Indian Education
With the intention of improving Native American education the DOI will now consolidate efforts at the elementary, secondary, higher education and career levels – administering programs to improve education and integrate Indian Education programs into other existing DOI programs.
4.The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will partner with Foreign Medical Accreditation
HHS will utilize their expertise to evaluate accreditation standards for foreign medical schools ensuring they are comparable to U.S. medical schools and will oversee the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA)
5.The Department of Health and Human Services will partner with Child Care Access Means Parents in School
Given HHS currently manages childcare focused grants, the additional responsibility of improving on-campus childcare support will add it it’s efficiency.
6.The State Department will partner with International Education and Foreign Language Studies
The State Department will focus on the administration of the Fulbright-Hays grant. This new responsibility will build on their existing responsibility of managing the Fulbright program.
What’s Next for the Department of Ed
ED currently administers quite a few programs, so these 6 partnerships are just the tip of the iceberg. The largest office within the Department of Education from a funding standpoint would be the Office of Financial Aid which administers the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and awards need-based aid in the form of federal grants, work-study and federal student loans to students aiming to pursue a college degree. Federal Financial Aid accounts for about two-thirds of the budget for ED.
There have been suggestions by observers that they could partner with the Treasury Department to administer and manage federal financial aid to students. They currently partner with Treasury (along with 22 other agencies) for efforts related to the Financial Literacy and Education Commission (FLEC). Any such partnership for Financial Aid with any other department has not yet been addressed by ED to date, much less confirmed. We will just have to wait and see.
