5 Things To Know About Trump's Education Policy Rollout
Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
President Donald Trump prioritized education reform during his 2024 campaign and went to work quickly after taking the oath of office.
A series of executive orders followed by actions against the status quo in both K–12 and higher education that would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars prompted pushback from Democratic governors and the national teachers’ union. Several lawsuits will continue into 2026.
“These are reforms that conservatives have championed for decades,” the Department of Education proclaimed in a year-end post on its website. “And in one year, we’ve made them a reality.”
Here are five things to know about Trump’s education policy in 2025.
Ending the Department of Education
Trump appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who supports his goal of returning policy decisions to states and shifting funding mechanisms to other federal agencies, thereby potentially putting herself out of a job. Both have acknowledged that officially eliminating the Education Department requires congressional approval.
McMahon immediately cut her staff in half and closed satellite offices outside Washington. So far, she’s announced plans to move all functions except special education, student loans/financial aid, the office of civil rights, and data and information services to other departments, though she previously suggested those programs could be absorbed by Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and Census Bureau, respectively.
Eliminating the federal bureaucracy would get more money directly into classrooms, McMahon announced last month, adding that these interagency agreements are allowed under the Economy Act, which authorizes agencies to conduct transactions with one another in the absence of cheaper private alternatives.
In the months ahead, as state block grant programs are established to replace the current federal education grant systems, McMahon will continue her nationwide school visits, gather input from education leaders, and establish best practices for districts and states aimed at improving K–12 academic achievement.
The National Education Association teachers’ union has called the moves “illegal, cruel, and shameful.”
Civil Rights
Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices such as race-based hiring, admissions and curriculum; mandatory diversity training; and affinity groups by race or ethnicity. This was followed by orders condemning campus anti-Semitism and protecting women’s sports programs under Title IX.
The Education and Justice departments immediately began enforcing these policies in schools, launching investigations and withholding billions in federal funding to colleges and universities with recent histories of civil rights violations and disruptive or violent anti-Semitic protests.
Trump reached settlements with several universities he investigated, including Columbia, Brown, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Wagner College, and the University of Virginia.
Columbia will pay a $200 million fine plus $21 million to Jewish employees harassed by co-workers and students. Cornell University, also cited for both discriminatory student admissions practices and anti-Semitism, agreed to pay a $30 million penalty to the federal government and invest $30 million in research that directly benefits U.S. farmers.
The University of Pennsylvania, which was sanctioned for allowing a male to compete on the women’s swim team, was required to strip that athlete, Lia Thomas, of all awards, including his 2022 NCAA national championship, and send a letter of apology to all female swimmers who competed against him.
Trump attempted to freeze more than $500 million in research grants to the University of California-Los Angeles, but the school obtained a federal court order that said the funding must be released.
A legal battle with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard, is also ongoing. Trump’s attempt to withhold billions of dollars in research grants to the institution was met with a lawsuit, though the two sides have discussed a settlement. In September, Trump said a settlement could include $500 million for trade school programs that provide instruction on artificial intelligence, engines, and other vocations.
But most U.S. colleges and universities have not challenged federal policies and have removed online references to DEI programs.
“Faculties had collectively owned universities, and problems had been allowed to fester for years,” Jay Greene, formerly of the Heritage Foundation and now a member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, previously told The Epoch Times. “Senior leadership at these schools gains back control. They are relieved, and they get to blame Trump. It’s a total win.”
Trump has taken far fewer civil rights actions against K–12 institutions, though he has threatened to withhold federal funding from states that allow males to compete in girls’ sports or permit schools to withhold information about their child’s sexuality or chosen gender from parents.
Higher Education Compact
After the 2025–2026 academic year began, the Trump administration presented its proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine universities.
They were offered preferred consideration for federal grants and flexibility in research costs if they agreed to eliminate preferential treatment by race, require SAT scores in student applications, limit undergraduate admission of foreign students to 15 percent, freeze tuition for five years, maintain a policy of institutional neutrality on political and social issues, and accept all transfer credits from military members and veterans.
Seven schools declined the offer, announcing that such a deal would compromise their institutional independence. The remaining two schools, Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, haven’t announced a decision yet.
The Education Department hasn’t indicated whether the compact has been, or will be, offered to additional colleges and universities.
Universal School Choice
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress this year, includes a federal scholarship tax program supporting private school vouchers.
The program, which takes effect in 2027, allows a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donors to qualified scholarship-granting organizations or to cover associated costs like transportation and supplies. There are income eligibility guidelines in place to prioritize needy families.
The program is optional for states, and governors will consider it in the months ahead.
Trump and McMahon have promoted school choice, saying the one-size-fits-all approach of assigned schools by ZIP code is largely to blame for declining test scores across the nation.
In April, the president spoke to Republican Texas state legislators before they passed a bill that provides $1 billion for private school vouchers in the first year of the program, plus $2,000 per student for homeschooling expenses and up to $30,000 for special education students who chose a different school.
In June, McMahon boosted federal funding to publicly funded charter schools by $60 million for an annual total of $500 million. Her Republican supporters in Congress plan to introduce a federal tax credit for charitable donations to start up new charter schools.
Student Loans and Higher Education Transparency
Trump overhauled the student loan policies of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who attempted to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in delinquent debt to more than 5 million student borrowers. He also capped student loan programs that under Biden allowed students and parents to borrow unlimited amounts.
“The Trump administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme. The law is clear: If you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a Dec. 9 statement.
The Education Department will soon begin garnishing wages of borrowers who default on loans. The agency has also denied almost 380,000 requests for lower monthly payments. The American Federation of Teachers has sued the administration to maintain Biden-era payback arrangements.
In applying for federal student aid, meanwhile, borrowers are now informed of their post-graduation earning potential based on data from colleges and universities.
In 2026, Trump is expected to push the bipartisan College Transparency Act, which would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and post-collegiate outcomes.