Why Axing the Dept. of Education Hurts Students, Pre-K to College

This post was originally published on Word In Black.

By: Reid Setzer

Terminating the Department of Education is a clear goal of Project 2025, which is rife with terrible ideas that would harm students and schools nationwide. Conservatives have been fixated on this particular bad idea since the department was created in 1979, but it has gained new prominence in this year’s campaign.

From limiting federal oversight to ensure civil rights protections and adequate education for students with disabilities to ending the data collection key to holding unscrupulous colleges accountable, eliminating the Department of Education (ED) could have devastating consequences for students throughout their academic journeys, from preschool through college.

Early childhood, elementary, and secondary education programs administered by the Department of Education are vital to our nation’s students.

While the amount of federal pre-K-12 education funding provided is much less than that supplied by states and localities, federal programs are vital in supporting students from low-income backgrounds, developing and training educators, and providing resources for English learners, alongside other traditionally underserved students. If conservatives succeed in defunding or outright killing these programs as they have previously proposed, schools in high-poverty districts would be drained of millions of dollars, crippling their ability to function and leaving millions of children at huge disadvantages.

Without student performance data or school accountability, essential resources and supports would not be allocated.

All told, phasing out federal funds for all 13,000 school districts nationwide and letting states go their separate ways would be nothing short of disastrous, causing even deeper gaps in opportunity and achievement for our nation’s most vulnerable children. There are also federal assessment and accountability requirements that ensure schools are being evaluated by how they are serving all students. These rules are also designed to be intentional about looking for populations within those student bodies who might be struggling and directing resources accordingly. There are already states that have not been meeting these federal requirements regarding transparency and data. Without the Department of Education’s oversight, even more states will fail to do that work, to the detriment of all students, but especially those who are traditionally underserved within their borders.

Students’ civil rights would be at risk.

Abolishing the Department of Education also means that the Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) would cease to exist. Schools and colleges need to be assisted in, and held responsible for, creating safe and welcoming learning environments for all students. OCR has an essential role in holding schools and colleges accountable when they violate students’ civil rights to be free from sex-based and race-, national origin-, color-, and religious-based discrimination.

RELATED: How Will Project 2025 Affect Black America?

Adding this work to the Department of Justice’s workload and restricting enforcement to only the court system, as outlined in Project 2025, will reduce protections for students, diminish their sense of belonging on campus, lower completion rates, and let schools off the hook for providing supports.

Federal financial aid would be negatively impacted.

The state of higher education would also be in jeopardy without the Department of Education. The Federal Student Aid office at ED administers millions of dollars in vital grant aid annually and administers the FAFSA, which is used nationwide by millions of students and colleges. The Department also has oversight and distribution responsibilities concerning programs to support educator diversity, help students complete college, and provide on-campus childcare, just to name a few. While Project 2025 suggests making Federal Student Aid a separate government corporation, we have an office doing this work already. The Department of Education is also charged with providing aid and technical assistance to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities. Without ED, critical financial aid for students and support for under-resourced institutions would be nonexistent, leaving millions of students unable to afford college and wreaking havoc with the viability of essential institutions.

College would be out of reach for many students, and student debt would increase.

In addition to managing grant aid, the Department of Education also manages the federal student debt portfolio. Without the ability to borrow federal dollars to pay for college, millions of students will not be able to obtain higher education, and would be forced into private loans, which have higher interest rates and worse repayment terms for borrowers. Private loans don’t offer income-based repayment and loan forgiveness plans like Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) and Public Student Loan Forgiveness (PSLF), which are administered by the Department. ED is the central hub and consumer protector for all borrowers navigating this system, and eliminating it would yield an impenetrable mess for the average borrower and leave them much worse off.

It would be a waste of time, money, and expertise.

While those who want to terminate the Department of Education assert that whatever civil rights protections and programs they may want to continue to enforce and fund can be done elsewhere, Project 2025 is clear that the federal role should be dramatically reduced, several aid programs should be narrowed or eliminated, and ED should be eliminated.

Eliminating a central hub of expertise and fracturing the administration of related programs over several other agencies is designed to make them less effective for students and families and hinder cooperation and efficiency between civil servants, states, districts, schools, and colleges and universities. It also puts responsibilities on other agencies who don’t have expertise in those areas and have their own goals and priorities. While all of this is happening, rights aren’t being enforced, aid is being held up to students, states, schools, and colleges, and student loan repayment applications aren’t being processed.

Finally, the public doesn’t want this: a 2023 poll showed that when asking Americans which public policy priority should receive more government funding, education is the top response. A strong majority overall support increased governmental funding of education (65%), including 52% of Republicans.

It’s clear that the Department of Education is an essential part of the federal government. The next administration MUST keep ED intact — for the future of America’s students and the entire country.