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Responsibilities for K-12 and college programs, among others, will be moved to other federal agencies.
Nov. 18, 2025Updated 5:08 p.m. ET
The Trump administration announced on Tuesday an aggressive plan to continue dismantling the Education Department, ending the agency’s broad role in supporting academics at elementary and high schools and in expanding access to college.
Those responsibilities, which had been overseen by the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Office of Postsecondary Education, will instead be largely taken over by the Labor Department.
Additional changes include moving a child care grant program for college students and foreign medical school accreditation to the Health and Human Services Department, and transferring Fulbright programs and international education grants to the State Department. The Interior Department will take over the Indian Education Office.
Shifting duties away from the Education Department aligns with President Trump’s goal of eventually closing the agency, a move opposed by teachers’ unions and student rights groups and one that can only be accomplished with an act of Congress.
Less clear was how moving programs to other agencies aligned with Mr. Trump’s reason for closing the Education Department, which he has said was to give states more power in shaping school policies. A senior official at the Education Department said the changes would streamline bureaucracy and direct more money to the classroom.
“Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement, adding that the changes were an attempt to “refocus education on students, families and schools.”
