FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Allie Arcese
Sr. Director, Strategic Communications
(202) 785-6954
[email protected]

WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 20, 2025 — President Donald Trump today signed an executive order outlining his intention to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education (ED). The order states that “the Secretary of Education shall, to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law, take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities.” 

While the long-awaited order provides very little specificity, unwinding a federal government agency doesn’t happen instantly — it requires an act of Congress and a comprehensive and well-thought-out roadmap for transferring the oversight of various programs to other federal agencies. Newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon alluded to the forthcoming changes in a letter earlier this month, saying the “restoration” of the Department “will profoundly impact staff, budgets, and agency operations.”

In response to this news, NASFAA Interim President & CEO Beth Maglione provided the following statement:

“Dissolving the Department of Education — or starving it of resources — won’t eliminate the need to administer its programs. Federal student aid programs enshrined in law — including Pell Grants and campus-based aid like Federal Work-Study — must still be managed, loans must be serviced, and the FAFSA must be updated and maintained each year.

Given what we know about large-scale federal changes that involve complex systems and technology, it seems highly unlikely that untangling and redistributing the work of an entire agency would proceed without disruption for our nation’s students and colleges, particularly when the federal workforce tasked with carrying this out has just been decimated.

Dismantling the Department in haste could cripple the government's ability to accurately distribute billions in federal student aid, putting millions of students at risk — especially low-income students who lack a financial safety net.

American families and college students need financial aid that is accessible, predictable, and reliable. Creating chaos and uncertainty in the agency that oversees the administration of those funds is not the way to achieve that.

If there is a plan to reassign or redistribute this critical work performed by the Department and prevent disruptions for students, families, and the nation’s institutions of higher education, we ask the administration to share it immediately.”

###

About NASFAA
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents more than 29,000 financial aid professionals at approximately 3,000 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. NASFAA member institutions serve nine out of every 10 undergraduates in the U.S. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators.