Republican presidents as far back as Ronald Reagan have been threatening to shutter the Department of Education (DOE). Lamar Alexander (under former President George W. Bush) took up the chant, as did Betsy DeVos during the first Trump administration and several prominent Colorado Republicans. But in the midst of the current onslaught from Washington, D.C., it looks like it may be more than a threat this time.
The right-wing loves to hate the Department of Education — saying that it’s a prime example of Washington bureaucrats “meddling in Americans’ lives”. Some of this has to do with federal standards that are required with the provision of special education monies.
But much of it has to do with the political power and evenly dispersed geographic activism of teachers unions. Recent efforts by the DOE to ensure fair treatment of the most vulnerable students have only added fuel to the fire.
Technically – and the reason no other Republican president has been successful in shutting down the department – it would take an Act of Congress to close the DOE, as it took one to set it up and fund it. But with a president who plays fast and loose with the Constitution, it behooves us to take a close look at what’s at stake.
It makes it easier to think of the U.S. Department of Education as two distinct halves. One half provides some special “needs” funding for K-12 schools while the other half provides grants and loans to students at colleges and universities. It also has some grants into educational studies that it awards to colleges and universities.
For K-12 schools, the bulk of the DOE’s contribution is the $15 billion it spends on what’s called “special education students” nationwide, basically, students with disabilities that affect their ability to learn.
In Colorado in 2024, that’s 117,616 kids, which is a whopping 13.3 % of the total enrollment, according to budget figures provided by Jeremy Meyer, director of communications for the Colorado Department of Education. Each of these kids gets an IEP (individual education program) which sets out specific, measurable, and achievable goals for the student. This is how speech therapists, hearing aids, and ADHD counselors are funded. In 2024, the feds gave Colorado schools a whopping $200 million for special education.
In addition to providing Special Ed funding to ensure students with disabilities get the education they need without costing parents additional money, the DOE funding at K-12 also includes Title 1 money for the schools serving the neediest populations. This is an important “equalizer” in the education equation, as property taxes fund local schools and thus rich people tend to have well-funded local schools and low-income people do not.
Title 1 money provides things like extra teachers and paraprofessionals to reduce class size, professional training, and teaching materials and books. In 2024, Colorado received about $183 million from DOE for students and teachers. This money went to communities across Colorado from Denver and Adams counties to Archuleta and the San Luis Valley. According to a report from the group American Progress.org, losing Title 1 money in Colorado would put more than 2,000 Colorado teachers at risk of losing their jobs – about 4 percent of Colorado’s teaching workforce.
The other half of DOE funding is for higher education – colleges and universities and community colleges. The DOE provides funding for Pell Grants (which are federal scholarships for college) and student loans for all federally accredited institutions of higher learning. Last year Colorado students received $263 million in Pell grants and more than a billion dollars in federal loans.
In addition to student loans and scholarships, the DOE also provides funding for education research grants. While no executive order called for the shuttering of the DOE, on Monday this week, the so-called DOGE department, unilaterally and without cause, canceled 89 DOE contracts totaling $881 million nationwide. The move threw Colleges and Universities across Colorado into chaos causing the Colorado Department of Higher Education spokeswoman Megan McDermott to comment, “We can’t remember a time when there has been so much chaos and confusion around programs that are established and that have operated efficiently all along. This has caused anxiety amongst students, staff and the entire higher ed eco system. We are waiting for court decisions or congressional action that will either support or limit these.”
All told, should Trump make good on his promise to “end the DOE” in the executive order that could come later this week, Colorado would lose nearly $400 million in K-12 financing – which is the equivalent to 6,500 average teacher’s salaries. Among Colorado’s colleges and universities, the losses would be even greater – if student loans and Pell grants are involved, around $1.4 billion.
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