The Federal Department of Education’s (DOE) main role is financial; it distributes billions in federal money to colleges and schools. Congress enacted the department in 1979 and now, under the new administration, it’s existence is being questioned following comments made by President Trump.

Following Trump’s inauguration, he has entered the spotlight for his considerable use of the executive order to deliver on campaign promises. Including an order on Jan. 31 banning DEI that put dozens of federal employees on leave, including employees in the Department of Education.

On Feb. 5,  Trump said that the first task for his education secretary would be to “put herself out of a job.” Airing his intentions to abolish the department which is heavily involved with higher education.

Cutting funding, firing teachers and cutting research funding is “a way of dismantling the Department of Education from within,” Megan McDonough, a sophomore legal studies and psychology major at the University of Massachusetts Amherst explained.

One of the DOE’s crucial responsibilities is overseeing college accreditation, which is responsible for distributing federal aid.

The department manages about $1.5 trillion in student loan debt for over 40 million borrowers. Including the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which allows universities to allocate financial aid and run the programs such as the Pell Grant, which provides aid to students below a certain income threshold.

“People who are reliant on attending college with the money provided to them through the government, through FAFSA, through all these different avenues, they wouldn’t be able to afford to pursue an education [without the DOE],” McDonough said.

McDonough is an out-of-state student who relies on federal financial aid like millions of other American college students.

“I’m reliant on FAFSA; I’m reliant on federal student loans,” McDonough said, going on to say she feels “a sense of like anxiety and panic pertaining to a possible shutdown of a department that is directly supporting you.”

McDonough added, “I feel like nearly everybody at UMass would be affected, especially because of their reliance and support on the federal loans that they were granted.”

Maggie Campopiano, a senior political science and legal studies major, echoed McDonough’s statement about financial aid’s importance.

“I think that if the DOE is shut down…that is like a big concern for people. Unfortunately, I do think that [student loans] be moved to the private sector. And for us, I feel like that would mean higher interest rates and definitely no student loan forgiveness,” Campopiano said.

Campopiano, an in-state student, was depending on Grad PLUS loans, loans provided through the Department of Education, to attend law school post-graduation. She fears that if the DOE is abolished, she will have to turn completely to private loans, which are more expensive over time.

“As someone who has a good amount of private loans and sees the difference in the interest rate between my federal loans and my like private loans, it’s like, not even comparable. So to like, then have to take on tens of thousands more with such a high interest rate from a predatory company…it’s disheartening,” Campopiano said.

The president is expected to give the incoming education chief a plan for the DOE’s shutdown, but the president’s powers are limited by Congress.

During Trump’s first term in office, the education chief repeatedly sought budget cuts, but instead, Congress acted to increase the DOE’s spending each year. In 2023, the House considered amending a bill to close the agency, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.

Trump and the executive branch cannot shut down the Department of Education without Congress’s support, as all departments have to pass the House of Representatives and the Senate to be abolished or created.

“It’s a tricky situation because as a society and as a country, we have placed … so many checks and balances, as well as … legal obstacles and logistic obstacles that make it very hard for Trump to make this plan possible and get this approved,” McDonough said.

A super majority is required for approval from the Senate, which means that although the Republican party has 53 senators in Congress, 7 Democrats would have to “flip” to approve shutting down the DOE.

“So it’s not enough just to make an executive order and have like that be a law. It does have to go through a series of different balances in order for it to become legislation,” McDonough added.

What Trump can do to cut spending could be limited to tiny fractions of the budget, which already only accounts to 3.8 percent of the federal budget — one of the smallest of all the federal agencies.

“I was a student who had to rely on student loans,” Annie Foley Ruiz, the program coordinator for UMass’s Collaborative Teacher Education Pathway (the master’s of elementary education and initial licensure program) said.

“If student loans did not exist, I would not have been able to go to school. And I know that … speaks to the majority of people who attend. Very few people have the money to pay outright or have saved the money and have it … put away, and so that would drastically change the face of the student body [at UMass if there] was no access to funds to support diverse candidates.”

Foley Ruiz continued, “And so, you know, as much as the impulse is to feel panic and be confused and stop and not know what to do, I think it’s even more important that we press on … you know, really try not to get too caught up in what could happen.”

Grace Chai can be reached at [email protected]