Miguel Cardona departed the Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education building in Washington for the last time as Secretary of Education on Jan. 17. That was just three days before President Donald Trump took office, while vowing to eliminate Cardona’s former department.
Trump’s plans have ushered in a feeling of uncertainty for the future of the department, which among other things — is responsible for the yearly FAFSA process for college students to apply for financial aid and for implementing programs to help ensure access to education for all young Americans.
Concerns about how students will apply for and receive student aid if the Trump administration does shut down the Department of Education have made their way to DePaul, and administrators are working to “better understand these proposals and their potential impact,” DePaul University president Robert Manuel said in a statement to The DePaulia.
In his role as vice president for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, Manuel said he will keep advocating for “policies that prioritize student needs and the continuation of critical aid programs that allow everyone to access higher education, no matter their financial situation.”
During Trump’s speech at his Jan. 19 victory rally, he introduced Linda McMahon, former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), as the next Secretary of Education. After her introduction, he confirmed what many speculated he would do in his second term: dismantle the Department of Education and “send it back to the states.”
In Washington, Trump was met with jubilant crowds of supporters like Renee, a retired teacher from New York who made the drive to the nation’s capital for Trump’s inauguration. Renee spoke with The DePaulia on Inauguration Day in Washington but would not provide her last name, as was the case with many Trump supporters DePaulia reporters encountered that day.
When asked what the biggest change is that she wants to see in education from Trump, she said supports the elimination of the Department of Education.
“I’m not down for the Department of Education because that’s like a breeding ground .… It’s like ground zero for all things terrible,” Renee said.
Renee said that taught high school in New York for 33 years and saw what she called a rise in “mental health issues” and “social contagion” related to kids coming out as transgender.
“There’s vultures that feed off of that stuff .… I had to retire,” Renee said.
Christopher Phillips, a senior at the University of Chicago and the president of the UChicago college Republicans, condones President Trump’s plan to dismantle the Education Department for different reasons.
Phillips believes spending is out of control and that the U.S. isn’t getting a great return on its investment when it comes to federally backed education. He said there has been “large amounts of bureaucratic waste” under the current system.
“The Department of Education, I believe, was established under President Carter, and the testing scores across the country have really not improved, and in fact, they’ve gotten worse over that time frame,” Phillips said of the department, which has existed since 1979.
While it’s difficult to verify correlation between the creation of the Education Department and test scores, high school graduation rates rose from 71.5% in the 1979-80 school year to 87% for the 2021-22 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
College enrollment rates among high school graduates also have steadily increased from 49.4% in 1979 to 61.4% in 2023, according to data from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.
Phillips says he believes that the department should be shut down, but he’s unsure whether the FAFSA system should go with it.
“If we can have a system that distributes federal, or in this case just governmental student loans or student aid, it may yield some positive effects if we can bring that to the state level,” Phillips said.
While FAFSA and student aid may be top of mind for some during this period of uncertainty surrounding ED, “proposed changes to the Department of Education could potentially affect Title IX enforcement policies and regulations,” according to Kimberlie Goldsberry, interim vice president of Student Affairs at DePaul. Title IX is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational programs that receive federal funding. It was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1972.
According to Goldsberry, “DePaul is monitoring for these changes and will share them with students as they are available.”
DePaul will “continue to comply” with laws at all levels related to anti-discrimination and anti-harassment, Goldsberry said. She said that DePaul policies “provide robust protections” against discrimination and harassment, as well as sexual and relationship violence.
Similar to Goldsberry, “it’s not just about the money” for DePaul junior and former Education Department intern Victoria Gomez-Meza. She described plans to close the department as being rooted in “the want to create injustices within.”
Gomez-Meza said that at the Education Department, “it’s more about once you get to college, what do you need? What more resources do you need? What more support do you need to make sure you can graduate from college.”
Acknowledging efforts from the Trump administration to end federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs, Gomez-Meza urged professors and administrators to keep these issues in the forefront of their minds.
“There’s still actions, professors, our staff, our administrators, anyone can continue to take for students,” Gomez-Meza said.
She said the discontinuation of Education Department programs such as TRIO, which aims to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds, “would just create more injustices and inequities for students.”
“There’s going to be less and less students having the opportunity to go (to college) — and who’s it going to be? Gomez-Mesa asked. “It’s going to be the marginalized students, the students of color, the students that are first generation.”
Nupur Bosmiya and Alyssa Salcedo contributed to this report.
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