How the Trump Administration Is Dismantling the Department of Education in 2026
By Muntasir Minhaz • Published Aug 04, 2026 • US Higher Ed News & Policy
The Trump administration is not eliminating the Department of Education through Congress. It is emptying the department out by handing its programs to other federal agencies one agreement at a time. By June 16 2026, the department had signed 14 interagency agreements moving at least 148 K-12 and higher education programs to six other agencies, and its own headquarters is shrinking.
🏠 Department staff move out of their Washington headquarters in August 2026.
Staff dropped over 40 percent, from about 4,000 employees to about 2,100.
Labor, HHS, Justice, Interior, State, and Treasury now run former Education Department programs.
Congress still fully funded the department for 2026 even as its work moves elsewhere.
A department losing its work, not its funding
President Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to work toward closing the Department of Education. Only Congress holds the power to eliminate a cabinet agency outright, and lawmakers kept the department fully funded for 2026. So the administration is moving the department's day-to-day work to other agencies instead, one interagency agreement at a time (Education Week ).
Mass layoffs in 2025 cut the department's staff by more than 40 percent, from about 4,000 employees down to roughly 2,100 (ABC News ). With that much of the workforce gone, the department says it no longer needs its full headquarters building.
Fourteen agreements, six agencies
By June 16 2026, the department had signed 14 interagency agreements with six cabinet-level agencies, transferring management of at least 148 K-12 and higher education programs (Department of Education ). Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, Interior, State, and Treasury each now run programs that used to sit inside the Education Department, from K-12 grants to civil rights enforcement to management of the federal student loan portfolio (Education Week ).
Secretary McMahon frames the moves as a way to cut federal bureaucracy and let states run education programs closer to the ground. Senate Democrats and former department employees counter that shuffling programs between agencies raises costs rather than lowering them, and that the agencies receiving this work do not have the staff or systems in place to run it (Education Week ). Rep. Bobby Scott, the top Democrat on the House education committee, said the moves do not cut bureaucracy but rearrange it, and argued the real effect is a weaker federal role in guaranteeing equal access to a quality education (Education Week ).
The timeline stretches back to March 2025, when the administration first announced the department would shed staff. Layoffs hit through the rest of that year, and lawmakers, unions, and advocacy groups pushed back through Congress and the courts without stopping the department from signing new interagency agreements. By the time the 14th agreement went through in June 2026, the reorganization had touched nearly every major office at the department, from student aid to civil rights to K-12 grants.
The building is emptying too
The department's Washington headquarters sat about 70 percent vacant after the layoffs. Staff move out in August 2026 into a smaller office nearby, formerly occupied by the U.S. Agency for International Development, while the Department of Energy takes over the old headquarters lease. The department says the move saves close to five million dollars a year in operating costs (ABC News ).
What stays put
The department keeps its statutory authority over every program it has handed off. Under each agreement, the other agency handles day-to-day operations while the Education Department retains final legal responsibility and, in most cases, policy decisions (Department of Education ). If a program you rely on moved, check the receiving agency's website for updated contact information before you assume nothing changed.