Last week President Donald Trump signed an executive order to shut down the federal Department of Education, in what he said was an effort to return authority to states.
But California leaders don’t know exactly what that means for the department’s programs including K-12 services and student financial aid. And they’re not sure what the state can do to ensure that schools have support and college students can get loans and grants.
Trump maintains that the Department of Education isn’t equipped to handle the $1.6 trillion in student loans that it processes, and said he would move the loans to the Small Business Administration. There aren’t any details about how that transition would work or how the Small Business Administration, which faces its own staff cuts, would handle the additional responsibility.
‘A Lot of Unknowns’
The White House didn’t respond to my questions and the press line for the Department of Education was out of operation. I contacted a number of local state lawmakers and education officials about the changes. The few who responded said they have more questions than answers.
“There are just a lot of unknowns at this point,” said Chris Jonsmyr, a spokesperson for Assemblymember David Alvarez, who is trying to create a new university campus in Chula Vista.
“For instance, it is unclear to us why the DoE is being eliminated — what benefit does its elimination provide to students throughout the country? Who will manage national data collection on the effectiveness of schools and education strategies? Why are we continuing to pay a secretary of education if they are shutting down the department?”
Universities and colleges are also watching and waiting, officials said.
“Palomar College continues to run through scenario planning to ensure we can mitigate any impacts to our current and future students,” spokesperson Julie Lanthier Bandy said in an email to Voice of San Diego.
The University of California system isn’t anticipating disruptions to student aid including the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, Pell Grants, work study and student loans, spokesperson Rachel Zaentz told me in an email.
She said they’re calling for investments to federal aid and are confident students won’t lose funding.
“While individual financial aid offers are subject to change, we do not expect the recent announcement about the U.S. Department of Education to impact our ability to award and disburse financial aid to our students,” Zaentz stated.
Likewise, the Cal State system said they’re counting on business as usual for financial aid in the next academic year.
“There haven’t been any federal actions at this time that lead us to believe that there won’t be federal aid for 2025/2026,” Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith said.
Bentley-Smith said Cal State campuses partner with a state program called Cal-SOAP that helps students and families with financial aid and “hopefully minimizes the need for students and families to contact Federal Student Aid.”
Education Advocates Warn of Harmful Cuts
Some education advocates take a dimmer view of the changes and are sounding alarm bells about potential problems.
They warn that dismantling the department would make it harder for students to borrow money for college, and cause chaos in a financial aid system already prone to glitches. They also say cuts to federal funding for students with disabilities and low-income school districts would harm education for vulnerable students.
The federal Department of Education manages $151 billion in student loans in California, said
Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. It also administers $3.1 billion in Pell Grants: federal grants to low-income students that don’t require repayment.
As the Trump administration attempts to dismantle the department, it could threaten students’ ability to pay for college, he said.
“We’re worried about data being lost, students not getting information they need, the information not being processed correctly,” Freitas said. “I believe students will experience lack of loan access, colleges will not allow students to sign up for classes, students will experience a lot of chaos at their colleges. It will have a chilling effect on people wanting to go to college.”
Freitas thinks the end game is to privatize student loans instead of offering them as a public service. Forbes magazine agreed, noting that Trump’s executive order suggests that’s the plan.
“The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students,” the order states.
If that happens, Freitas said, California could potentially create its own state-run system to preserve public student loans. But that would take years to establish, and would probably require a bond measure to finance it.
Trump’s order could also cut programs at K-12 schools by eliminating $2.2 billion for California schools in low-income areas and $1.6 billion that the state receives for special education, Freitas said.
Some Are Looking to the Courts
While Trump framed the decision as an executive order, many organizations are challenging his authority to unilaterally dismantle an agency that Congress created.
Earlier this month a coalition of states including California sued to block the elimination of the department and mass firing of its employees. They argued it would impair administration of student loans, disability services and other functions.
On Monday the American Federation of Teachers and several public school districts filed a similar lawsuit against dismantling the department, claiming the executive order is unlawful.
The federation also filed a lawsuit last week over the elimination of a student loan system that allowed people to make payments based on their incomes, or to use public service loan forgiveness programs designed for teachers, nurses and first responders.
Those lawsuits will determine whether Trump can single-handedly gut the department, or whether Congress must weigh in, Freitas said. In the meantime, there’s not much that state leaders can do.
“Only Congress can change this,” he said. “So without that fight in Congress, really what we can do is take it to the courts or take it to the streets.”
Battle Over Trash in Tijuana River Valley
State Sen. Steve Padilla made a second stab at blocking a planned landfill near the Tijuana River Valley, with a bill to tighten the approval process for new landfills in areas with high pollution burdens.
Padilla said the county approved the landfill through a ballot measure 15 years ago that skirted typical environmental review. The new landfill, he said, “would be built less than two miles from the Tijuana River, squarely in the River’s already severely environmentally distressed watershed.”
His bill would require public hearing for landfills proposed in high pollution areas, and would require local agencies to prove it’s safe before the state issues a waste discharge permit.
Padilla tried to block the landfill last year, but his bill never made it to a vote.
The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.