Department of Education to Keep Managing Pell Grants, Student Loans After Downsizing: White House 👉 Updatem News

Trump is slated to sign an executive order on the department on March 20.

The U.S. Department of Education will continue handling Pell grants, student loans, and other “critical functions” even as other parts of the agency are eliminated or shifted elsewhere, the White House said on March 20.

“The Department of Education will be much smaller than it is today,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in Washington outside the White House, several hours before President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign an executive order to dismantle the department.

She added later: “When it comes to student loans and Pell Grants, those will still be run out of the Department of Education.”

Federal funding to schools with large numbers of poor children, known as Title I funding, and funding for special education are other “critical functions” that “will remain” inside the Department of Education, Leavitt also said.

Trump has promised to dismantle the Department of Education, one of the smallest Cabinet-level agencies, and is slated at 4 p.m. on Thursday to sign an order to that effect.

The White House said in a fact sheet distributed ahead of the signing that Trump in the order will direct Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to prepare for the closure of the Department of Education and the transfer of its authority to the states.

Leavitt indicated that only pertains to the component that focuses on educating students, not to functions such as student loans.

“Pell grants and student loans will still be run out of the department out of Washington, D.C., but the great responsibility of educating our students will return to the states,” she said.

In a written statement on Thursday, the White House said that “instead of maintaining the status quo that is failing American students, the Trump Administration’s bold plan will return education where it belongs—with individual states, which are best positioned to administer effective programs and services that benefit their own unique populations and needs.”

The Department of Education has already laid off or is preparing to fire some 1,300 workers, with another 600 accepting buyouts, an official told reporters earlier in March.

The agency had about 4,100 employees before the moves.

The official also said that all agency offices, including facilities in New York and Chicago, outside of Washington will be closed.

After the closures, all remaining Department of Education employees will work from the agency’s building in the nation’s capital, according to the official.

While many Republicans have praised Trump’s plan, a number of Democrats say that the department should not be dismantled.

“Abolishing a federal agency requires an Act of Congress. President Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) and ‘return education to the states’ will be challenged in the Courts,” Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Education Committee, said in a statement.

He added later, “I am adamantly opposed to this reckless action.”

Aaron Gifford contributed to this report.

Original News Source Link – Epoch Times

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