Summary: First, it should be prefaced that the President can not completely dismantle the Department of Education without Congressional approval. However, with both houses holding Republican majorities and politically allied with the President, it seems like this may be a likely outcome. We should also preface that the President does not want to abolish education. He rather wants to give all power to the states. This would include curriculum, laws about teaching LGBTQ, and how the school system is funded. The Trump Administration’s larger goal seems to be shrinking the government. The Republican-controlled House and Senate assert that smaller government can lead to things getting done more efficiently and taxes being lower for the average person. However, there are also many cons to dismantling the department.
Cons: While having numerous pros, destroying the Department of Education at the federal level would bring harsh consequences. Schools would receive funding from the state only, and that would mean they would overall receive less funding. This could lead to a decline in the number of qualified teachers and schools having to merge due to lack of money, making class sizes explode.
Student loans would cease to exist. As they would cost too much for just the states to pay alone. Students with real promise may not be able to go to the college they desire. Students who need special education get that through a strong government funding system that works individually with every student. Without federal help, it is likely that these programs will decrease dramatically in size and efficiency, and could be eliminated altogether.
States deciding what to teach their students could lead to censorship in the curriculum. If a state decides that evolution is not appropriate to science but Creationism is, that is what those students will be taught. Students learn information not based on facts but on what the political party of that state believes they should learn.
In summary not only the states but the education system itself is not ready for a full dismantling on a federal level, which would lead to catastrophic levels of lost funding. But then why do it? Here are the pros to the President’s plan.
Pros: The main benefit to dismantling the Department of Education is how it would make the government smaller. The United States government is massive, and this can sometimes lead to chaos in the system. The argument is that by dismantling a department that requires so much money and personnel on a federal level, the government can be less chaotic. Smaller government typically leads to more efficiency, as shown in the chart below.
It allows the federal government to reallocate funds to agencies it deems more relevant. Specific government outlets increase their budgets under different administrations. Spending for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) increased 300% from 3 billion dollars to 9 billion dollars in spending since the Trump administration took over in January, 2025. It is likely that the dismantling of the DOE could help to cover those costs.
Conclusion: Dismantling the Department of Education on a federal level could have harsh and extreme consequences for education across the country, but would lead to the federal government having more money to spend and possibly more efficiency. Such costs would be shifted to the individual states and their legislatures.