President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing Secretary of Education Linda McMahon to begin dismantling the Department of Education Thursday morning. 

“With today’s action, we take a significant step forward to give parents and states control over their children’s education,” McMahon wrote in a Department of Education press release Thursday. “Taxpayers will no longer be burdened with tens of billions of dollars of waste on progressive social experiments and obsolete programs.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing Thursday the order would move to “greatly minimize the agency.” The Department of Education’s student loan portfolio will be taken over by the Small Business Administration and the Health and Human Services Department will take over nutritional programs and services for disabled students, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced in a speech Friday morning.

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“[The] Department of Education, we’re going to eliminate it,” Trump said after the signing. “Everybody knows it’s right, and the Democrats know it’s right, and I hope they’re going to be voting for it.”

Kendrick Davis, a professor of research at the Rossier School of Education, said uncertainties about how the executive order will affect federal financial aid could impact current and prospective students at USC in a Feb. 11 interview with the Daily Trojan.

“When there is uncertainty, when students and families are unclear about what’s available to them, how to access it, if they’re not getting the proper support in order to do that, that can affect their ability to enroll in, get financial aid for and eventually show up on campus,” Davis said. 

The Department of Education funds special education in public schools through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA has never been fully funded, and as of 2023, was less than 13% funded. Trump said IDEA will be unimpacted, according to CBS. However, Davis said dismantling the Department of Education could further jeopardize access to special education in public schools.

“If history tells us anything, we’ll need to be intentional about supporting students with disabilities, because those are the funds that are typically most vulnerable,” Davis said. 

The Department of Education has its own Office for Civil Rights, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded spaces. This same office sent USC a letter over claims of antisemitism. 

The White House’s fact sheet states the order to dismantle the Department of Education “also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance [diversity, equity and inclusion] or gender ideology.” Davis said a sense of safety and belonging were critical for college campuses, and orders attacking DEI could threaten campus culture, jobs on campus and student support systems. 

Davis encouraged concerned students and faculty to “arm yourself with knowledge” in order to make meaningful and knowledgeable decisions, and to locate trustworthy websites and organizations that provide accurate information that decisions can be based on. 

“This symphony of disorienting executive orders and actions is meant to make people feel hopeless, less than, devalued — like there is not a progressive and constructive path forward, when, in fact, there is, and that’s what we need to focus on,” Davis said.