Republican states support Trump’s plan to eliminate the Department of Education.

A growing number of Republican state officials are backing President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to dismantle the Department of Education. One even created an advisory committee to prepare for any new responsibilities the state might take on as a result.

“What we want to do is make sure we’re able to make the biggest changes in the fastest possible way,” said Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters on November 11 when he announced the creation of Trump’s Education Advisory Committee. “We’ve been on the tip of the spear in an aggressive, tougher education system, and now that President Trump is bringing in some really big changes, we want to be the state that’s ready to implement that.”

Although they have yet to build their own forces, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee and Arkansas Education Secretary Jacob Oliva echoed Walters, each saying they would welcome a federal shutdown.

All three Republicans focused their approval on the potential benefits of redistributing responsibilities to K-12 schools, while ignoring the potential effects that change would have on higher ed. Some experts say this may be because the door is unlikely to be completely closed.

Instead, they suggest that the comments by federal officials are more of an attempt to get on Trump’s good side.

“Right now, the social forces are more about politics than anything else,” said Robert Kelchen, professor of education and head of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “But if it looks like there’s going to be a major effort to eliminate the Department of Education and cut jobs, the states will begin serious preparations.”

Trump and his appointees have said some agencies will be “completely eliminated,” but the administration has not yet provided a detailed plan for how to dismantle the agencies, including whether Trump will end the programs. That makes it difficult to gauge how the department’s repeal will work and what its demise will mean for the states.

But experts predict that oversight of key ed programs will remain in D.C. under the Departments of Justice, Treasury and Health and Human Services and states could gain more control over federal funding for K-12 schools. A bill introduced last week by Senator Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, would eliminate the department but redistribute programs like the Pell Grant to other agencies.

Governors and their education officials say that the funding and programs currently managed by the department are better in the hands of local leaders.

“I believe that Tennessee has a greater ability than the federal government to design a strategy for spending federal dollars in Tennessee,” Lee said. ChalkbeatK-12 industry publication, when asked about Trump’s plans. “We know our children. We know the needs here much better than the bureaucracy in Washington, DC.”

Likewise, Texas governor Greg Abbott wrote in X this month that he also agrees with Trump’s plan. “Stop being taught by government officials. Empower states to focus on basic education,” he wrote.

Republican state officials have long been at odds with the Department of Education, especially under Democratic leadership, regarding what they see as overreach. Over the summer, they clashed over Biden’s administration’s Title IX overhaul that expanded protections for transgender students in K-12 and beyond. All Republican attorneys general sued the department over the law, and succeeded in obtaining court orders preventing the agency from implementing it.

Many of the Republicans’ battles and concerns with the Department of Education center on K-12. But that’s just one part of the department’s work, and ending the facility could have ramifications for higher education, several experts predict. They point to the botched introduction of a new free application for Federal Student Aid last year as evidence that any restructuring of this scale would cause chaos.

“I would hope that some of the challenges stemming from the implementation of FAFSA will give policymakers pause before they make plans to restructure education systems,” said Tom Harnisch, vice president of government relations for the State Education Higher Education Officers Association. “Ultimately this could have a significant downward impact on students if these programs go to a different agency.”

Changing Loads

Kelchen said Republicans’ lack of focus on colleges and universities makes sense, as they expect little effect on higher profits and larger benefits for the state’s K-12 programs.

“Given what the outcome could be [of abolishing ED] it’s just a few laws coming from Washington and a lot of funding may just be flowing to the Treasury, many red states are not worried,” he said.

Jon Valant, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said gutting the Education Department would be “very disruptive” unless Congress commits more money to support the reform.

And if the states were to take on any of the responsibilities previously held by the federal government, he worries they won’t have the bandwidth to do so. That lack of power could hurt a few students, he added.

“It’s important to remember something like Title I, [which provides financial aid to school districts that serve low-income families] why it exists in the first place. There is, in part, to correct the really difficult inequities in school funding that can arise if we rely entirely on local and state sources,” said Valant.

Katharine Meyer, a fellow in management studies at the Brookings Brown Center on Education Policy, said the department’s main job when it comes to colleges and universities is managing grants and loans. If Trump or Congress were to cut the amount of aid awarded or make it harder for students to access it, states would have to step in and fill the gap—if they had the money. The same would be true of accountability measures and potential accreditation. (States, the federal government and accreditors currently work together to oversee colleges.)

“That would be too expensive for the government,” he said, “so I think they would be interested in that not happening.”

Valant added that states “have different capacities to administer these types of programs and different levels of commitment to addressing the needs of their most vulnerable students.”

“Many states will be overwhelmed,” he predicted.

Additionally, if the FAFSA fiasco shows anything, it’s that it really means it [bear] responsibility for mismanagement,” said Meyer. “If the whole process is transferred to another department, that’s complicated, and that’s going to take time, and it’s unlikely to be a smooth, smooth transition.”

Harnisch, from SHEEO, hopes that although they support the new administration, the policy makers also keep in mind the limits under which they have to take on more responsibilities.

“Public higher education institutions are often very short on money,” said Harnisch. “The federal government is able to deal with the deficit. Countries, at the end of the day, have to balance their budgets, and that often leads to deficits. Higher education has historically been at the forefront of many of those cuts, and managing new programs, given current budget constraints, can be very challenging for many states.”