With Donald Trump’s reelection in the 2024 presidential election, there are mixed opinions on what policy will be in store for the next four years. One proposal by Donald Trump is to reform the education system by eliminating the Department of Education. We at The Octave have grave concerns if the Department of Education is ultimately dissolved.

Congress established the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) on May 4, 1980, in the Department of Education Organization Act. It was established to ensure equal access to educational opportunities nationwide, supplement state institutions to ensure the quality of education, promote a curriculum backed by federal research, and increase accountability put on the president and Congress regarding education. The DE establishes policy regarding student financial aid and assistance, such as support for low-income families by supplementing lunch costs or providing extra resources for students with disabilities, collects data on trends to identify best practices in education, and leads the way in implementing educational policy proposed by Congress and the President.

The dispute regarding the dissolution of the DOE primarily revolves around the belief that the government does not belong in education, with Donald Trump being a major advocate for devolving education back to the states. 

With the complexity that comes with reform of its scale, it’s impossible to tell exactly how a plan would be carried out, or what the exact details of the plan would entail. So, we at The Octave had to make a few assumptions before offering speculation: the dissolution of the DOE also removes funding that itself is responsible for providing, and the dissolution of the DOE is respected by all states.

The DOE regulates education standards, meaning if the DOE is to be dissolved, the current US curriculum would become an unofficial guideline that gradually becomes outdated, rather than regularly updated requirements. 

Without a nationally organized body to regulate the curriculum, updating it with new information would become increasingly difficult. This would lead to states having varying levels of education quality over time, largely due to inconsistent educational standards, lack of resources for curriculum updates, and.differences in funding

Without an organized governing body, there would no longer be a federal guarantee of receiving a K-12 education. Since the DOE is responsible for securing education and offering equal opportunities across the states, its dissolution is still ultimately up to the states to decide who can learn and what is learned.      

“there really needs to be balance. a lot of people need to know their state and local history, and you’re not going to get that with a federal curriculum.” English teacher mr. Robinson  said. “But likewise, there are a lot of places who have a very complicated relationship with their local history and sometimes seek to hide it and their needs to be national regulation about at least a minimal competency about what an American graduate is able to do.” 

With a large portion of government funding to the states gone, the quality of education would no longer be guaranteed, and education may become a tool of class distinction, where the wealthy and influential flourish in the education that they can pay for themselves, while those in public systems slowly fall behind. This ends in a society further separated between highly educated and lowly educated people.

Even without support from the federal government, there would be a strong incentive for states to maintain institutions, because states would want to keep their population and attract as many as possible. However, without financial backing from the federal government, public education may suffer from underfunding. The curriculum in public, state schools would no longer be backed by annual data from schools nationwide regarding the effectiveness of a curriculum, and, therefore, the quality of public education would suffer.

The overall economic impact of those in poverty would be gradual, Almost 18 million students file the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) each year. 

With $241.66 billion in budgetary resources would be reallocated and financial aid like FAFSA and grants would most likely cut and lower the odds of students getting the funds needed to get a college education.  Not all financial aid resources would suddenly become unavailable, but the federal ones are relatively important and beneficial to those struggling financially. 

Because the Department of Education was signed in by an executive order, the president has the power to revoke the order at any time. Congress has the power to reimplement new systems that could go towards financial aid, but reestablishing aid would still require that a new bill goes through the proper consideration, and is approved by 2/3 of Congress. 

Additionally, Congress would have to work around constitutional limitations that disallow establishment of cabinets under the executive branch, and if attempted, would likely be seen as an unconstitutional overreach.

With all of this considered, it would be difficult to rally support and get the necessary number of senate votes to reestablish a system resembling the DOE. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to break a filibuster, and senate republicans cannot get enough votes from the Democrats to get it passed.