Key Points
- H.R. 10232 would block interagency transfers of four Education Department offices (special education, postsecondary education, elementary and secondary, and Indian education).
- Federal Student Aid is not on the list, so the $1.7 trillion student loan transfer to Treasury continues.
- The House version goes further than its Senate companion, adding quarterly public cost reporting on every interagency agreement signed on or after February 1, 2025.
A bipartisan group of House members introduced H.R. 10232 (PDF File) last week, a bill that would bar the Secretary of Education from using interagency agreements to hand off the work of four Department of Education offices to other federal agencies. Reps. John Mannion (D-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), and Education and Workforce Ranking Member Bobby Scott (D-VA) are the sponsors, and the bill was referred to the Education and Workforce Committee.
This is the House companion to S. 5046 (PDF File), the Senate measure from Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) that cleared the Senate HELP Committee on a 13-9 vote in July.
The four protected offices are the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, the Office of Postsecondary Education, the Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, and the Office of Indian Education.
To stop any potential moves, the bill overrides the Economy Act (31 U.S.C. 1535), Section 430 of the General Education Provisions Act, and three sections of the Department of Education Organization Act, which are the key the authorities the department has leaned on while moving special education to HHS and civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department.
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Why It Matters
While four major Department of Education offices are included in the bill, it’s important to note that Federal Student Aid is not. Neither is the Office for Civil Rights.
That means the $1.7 trillion federal loan portfolio’s handoff to the Treasury Department would proceed untouched if this bill became law, as would the eventual move of FAFSA processing. Borrowers watching for a bill that stops their servicing arrangements from changing hands will not find it here.
What the bill does protect on the higher education side is the Office of Postsecondary Education, which runs TRIO, GEAR UP, Title III and Title V institutional aid, and teacher preparation grants.
What The House Added That The Senate Bill Doesn’t Have
The Senate bill focuses on simple stopping the transfers. The House bill adds a transparency mandate aimed at the cost of a reorganization that has already pushed 7.8 million defaulted borrowers toward a new debt collector.
- Quarterly cost reporting. Within two weeks of enactment and every quarter after, the Secretary would have to send Congress and post publicly a line-item accounting of every interagency agreement signed on or after February 1, 2025 with actual and estimated costs, benchmarked against fiscal 2024 spending on the same work.
- Nine required categories. Grant administration. Staff training. Grantee training. Detailing and relocating employees. Facilities changes. Technology and infrastructure changes. Overhead. Contract cost changes. Reductions in force.
- A travel funding cutoff. No fiscal 2026 or 2027 money from the “Program Administration” or “Student Aid Administration” accounts could be obligated or expended for the Secretary of Education’s travel expenses unless she files those reports.
That last provision does not ban Secretary Linda McMahon from traveling but it makes her travel budget contingent on disclosure. And given that McMahon has been running a 50-state “Returning Education to the States” tour, it seems to have a more personal focus.
While the sponsors’ announcement does not mention the tour, and the cost-analysis section applies to every post-February 2025 interagency agreement, not only the four offices, so the reporting burden is broader than the transfer ban itself.
The Details
The prohibition language is unusually wide, and far broader than the earlier proposals to relocate individual programs. Beyond signing new agreements, the Secretary could not implement agreements already in place, procure services, obtain goods, transfer activities or appropriations, use another agency’s research, equipment, services, or facilities, or jointly carry out projects tied to the four offices’ functions.
It also closes an obvious workaround: the Secretary could not first shuffle a program from a protected office into an unprotected one inside the department, then sign an interagency deal about it.
Anything already in effect on February 1, 2025 can continue, as well as renewals of the same or substantially similar terms, which grandfathers routine arrangements while stopping or requiring reporting on everything attempted since. That includes the Treasury deal that now handles federal loan collections, though the four-office limit keeps it out of reach anyway.
How This Connects
The Department of Education has been signing quite a few interagency agreements to “dismantle” itself. Roughly 10 interagency agreements with five agencies were on the books by March 2026, covering school safety, Title I, career and technical education, family engagement, and the loan portfolio.
House Democrats have already demanded the department reverse the special education and civil rights transfers, and senators have pushed back on the Treasury loan move specifically.
For borrowers, though, the more consequential change remains the timeline of federal student loan changes running through 2028, which this bill leaves alone.
What’s Next
The bill sits with the House Education and Workforce Committee, whose Republican majority has signaled it supports the dismantling of the Department of Education. They recently introduced their own 10 bills that would permanently dismantle almost every aspect of the Department.
Keep an eye out one whether either the House or Senate version of this bill moves with the upcoming budget debates.
Editor: Colin Graves
Robert Farrington is the founder of The College Investor and is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading voices on student loan debt and saving for college. He holds an MBA from UC San Diego Rady School of Management and has spent over 15 years researching, writing, and advising on student loans, 529 plans, financial aid programs, and saving and investing for young professionals.
Robert has been featured in the The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, NBC News, and Forbes, where he has been a regular personal finance contributor for over a decade. His work combines both professional expertise and personal experience – he successfully navigated his own student loan repayment journey and has helped thousands of readers do the same.
He is committed to making the intersection of personal finance and education transparent and accessible. You can learn more about Robert on the About Page or on his personal site RobertFarrington.com.