Donald Trump was inaugurated into office on January 20, 2025, and since then, his policies have already started taking effect on our education. As some of you may or may not have already known, one of Trump’s plans for his Project 2025 plan is to dismantle the Department of Education. His plan is to allow states to determine school decisions such as budgets. On March 20, he passed an executive order to potentially dismantle the Department of Education, which will need an act of Congress to actually go through.
The Department of Education is an essential part of the United States public education program, it oversees the system that federally recognizes agencies that provide federal money grants for student financial aid. Trump is planning on cutting this federal funding given to schools and colleges. In the fiscal year of 2025, the department has about $102.24 billion to spend and manages about $1.5 trillion in student loan debt. The cuts in the department’s budget are already evident in the fact that in the fiscal year of 2024, the department had $241.66 billion in budgetary resources, which is more than double the budget of today.
Although not inherently clear yet, Trump’s dismantling of the Department of Education may affect Marshall’s Title 1 Program, Special Education Program, and Meal Program, because Marshall is a federally funded school.
Marshall’s College Counselor, Ms. Bryan believes that nothing extraordinarily different will change for the class of 2025 in terms of financial aid. Though, things might change for other graduating classmen. Making it clear again, nobody knows exactly what will happen but a shift of student loans to bankers might mean inconsistencies in interest rates set by the banks.
Potential Dismantling of the Department of Education
On March 20, Trump passed an executive order that confirms that former wrestling CEO Linda McMahon, our new Secretary of Education will take steps to dismantle the Department of Education. However, the dismantling of the department will have to go through Congress.
Trump plans to give the power to decide school budgets over to the power of the states. For Barristers, this might make going to an out of state college or university a lot harder to accomplish if you are expecting federal aid because each state might have their own policies on it now.
It’s still quite unclear on the exact specifics of Trump’s plans for education, but on March 6, he told reporters that student loans would be brought under the Department of Treasury, Department of Commerce, or the Small Business Administration (SBA). The rationale for this is that the Department of Treasury already has income verification and has a lot of information necessary to implement student loan programs.
Effects on Free Application Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) So Far
According to the California Student Aid Commission and CalMatters, about 48,000 seniors have not completed their FAFSA application, a 25% decrease from last year. Additionally, compared to last year, 30,000 students who applied with at least one undocumented parent had dropped by 44% to 17,000 now.
These numbers are very shocking because California’s diverse population relies a bit on financial aid for their higher education and we’re losing more and more students who should be enrolling. The explanation to why these numbers have dropped so much this year is because of Trump’s administration. Many are skeptical of giving away their family’s status to the federal government.
Fortunately, California has its own state application, the California Dream Act Application (CADAA) which stresses that student aid commission is not shared with federal agencies. The purpose of CADAA was for undocumented students, or students with a parent who wasn’t a citizen to apply for state aid. This means if you are wary of the government gaining any information, Barristers are likely safe to still apply for FAFSA.
However, you should still be wary because time changes fast and the University of California sued Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency last month to block it from gaining access to sensitive student information. The department has reportedly gained access to student loan records that included their Social Security number and other personal and financial information. People are furious at this violation in personal loan information and are still fighting against it. Students should probably be safe, but it’s still unclear if the government still has access to these records. Therefore, any questions about personal loan information should be asked to trusted specialist, like our college counselor at Marshall.
