Key Points
- The Department of Education has signed interagency agreements shifting six long-standing education programs to four other federal agencies, despite federal law assigning those responsibilities to the Department of Education.
- The transfers highlight a broader push under the Trump administration to reassign or wind down The Department of Education functions.
- These changes leave the Department’s core financial aid programs (student loans, Pell Grants, and the FAFSA) untouched for now.
The Trump Administration continues its efforts to hollow out the U.S. Department of Education by sending six programs to other federal agencies. The U.S. Department of Education announced the changes in a press conference on Tuesday, November 18, 2025.
Although federal law assigns responsibility for these programs to the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is making an end-run around the law by entering into contracts with the other federal agencies to operate the programs under U.S. Department of Education oversight.
These interagency agreements (IAAs) send the six program to the following four agencies:
- U.S. Department of Labor (DOL): Elementary and Secondary Education Partnership and Postsecondary Education Partnership. DOL will be responsible for grants relating to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority-Serving Institutes (MSIs), as well as grants focused on improving student success for college students
- U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI): Indian Education Partnership
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS): Foreign Medical Accreditation Partnership and Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS)
- U.S. Department of State (DOS): International Education and Foreign Language Studies Partnership, including programs administered under the Fulbright-Hays grant
U.S. Department of Education staff who manage these programs will be transferred to the four federal agencies.
The agreements were signed on September 30, 2025, but not announced until now. It will take several months to transfer the programs to the other federal agencies.
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How Interagency Agreements Will Work
These interagency agreements are similar to the agreement announced on May 21, 2025 to transfer workforce-related career, technical and adult education programs to the U.S. Department of Labor, as required by an April 23, 2025 executive order. This affected programs funded under Titles I, II and III of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) and the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V)..
These changes do not save money, do not improve outcomes and do not improve accountability. There will be some savings as the Trump administration eliminates some of the grants provided by these programs, but those grant cancellations occurred prior to moving the programs to other federal agencies.
It is unclear how these programs fulfill the President’s promise to return education to the states, as required by the President’s March 20, 2025 executive order, since these programs will still be administered by federal agencies.
All of these changes are similar to what we expected with the general narrative of eliminating the Department of Education.
Changing Focus Of Education
Tuesday’s announcement reflects a view that the purpose of education is primarily to prepare students for jobs and careers.
These changes do not affect federal student loan programs, the FAFSA, the Federal Pell Grant or other programs operated by Federal Student Aid (FSA). The U.S. Department of Education is still exploring options for these programs, including the possibility of privatizing the federal student loan portfolio.
The federal student loan programs are undergoing a lot of changes due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). It would be difficult to transfer the programs to another federal agency while these changes are still underway.
Although responsibility for setting education policy will remain with the U.S. Department of Education, policy decisions often have a close connection to program implementation and operation. Organizing the education programs into silos will lead to fragmentation of the programs.
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Editor: Robert Farrington
Mark Kantrowitz is an expert on student financial aid, scholarships, 529 plans, and student loans. He has been quoted in more than 10,000 newspaper and magazine articles about college admissions and financial aid. Mark has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reuters, USA Today, MarketWatch, Money Magazine, Forbes, Newsweek, and Time. You can find his work on Student Aid Policy here.
Mark is the author of five bestselling books about scholarships and financial aid and holds seven patents. Mark serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Student Financial Aid, the editorial advisory board of Bottom Line/Personal, and is a member of the board of trustees of the Center for Excellence in Education. He previously served as a member of the board of directors of the National Scholarship Providers Association. Mark has two Bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and philosophy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Master’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).