Trump Making Major Moves re: Student Loans, Disabled Students in Education Department Shutdown

On Thursday, President Trump signed a big, beautiful executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to take steps to permanently shut down the (unconstitutional) federal Department of Education (ED.) The final shutdown and elimination of this department will require Congress to act, but the executive can, in effect, reduce the ED to the leanest of skeleton crews in the meantime.

To that end, on Friday, President Trump announced that he is taking two major items out of the ED's portfolio: The handling of student loans, one of the soon-to-be-former ED's primary functions, will move to the Small Business Administration (SBA) and programs for disabled students will move to Health & Human Services (HHS.)

The change will happen, according to the president, "immediately."

President Trump said Friday he is “immediately” moving the handling of federal student loans to the Small Business Administration (SBA), and shifting programs for students with disabilities to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as his White House seeks to wind down and eventually eliminate the Education Department.
“I’ve decided that the SBA, the Small Business Administration, headed by Kelly Loeffler, will handle will all of the student loan portfolio,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, noting it is a “pretty complicated deal, and that’s coming out of the Department of Education immediately.”
“And also, Bobby Kennedy, with the Health and Human Services Department, will be handling special needs and all the nutrition programs and everything else,” he continued.
“I think that will work out very well. Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” the president added.

The ideal solution, of course, would be to divorce the federal government from any involvement in education at all, including student loans. The Constitution gives no branch of the federal government any enumerated power to have any involvement with education whatsoever; the SBA should, in a just world, be charged with concluding what student loans have already been signed, to collect the repayments of those loans, and to direct any new loan applicants to private lenders, there to make their case.

This isn't a bad start - if the Trump administration pulls it off. The educational establishment, as exemplified by Randi Weingarten, is already freaking out over the move, which most of us would take to mean it's a good idea.

IT'S DONE: Trump Signs Monster Executive Order Aimed at Closing Education Department

Advocates for students with disabilities, or at least some of the more vocal ones that have the ear of The Hill, are also unhappy.

Advocates for students with disabilities have forcefully pushed back against the idea of those programs going to HHS, especially under this administration and Kennedy, who has a long record of anti-vaccine rhetoric and false claims that vaccines cause autism.

Well, there - there's a great argument for returning these programs to the states, as well. Let Oregon handle disabled students in one manner, Texas in another, Virginia, Ohio, California, and Alaska, all as works best for that state. This, too, should, in time, be decoupled from Washington. Win-win. Federalism is a great system.

And, of course, there's this:

The declaration by the president to move these programs out of the Education Department will almost certainly be challenged in court, as well his actions against the department more broadly.

That much is certain.

This process will be playing out for months; of that, there can be no doubt. We will, of course, bring you updates as events warrant.

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