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OPINION: Other Republican leaders have made the same promise, but the president-elect could be the one to get the job done

Donald Trump made a big promise on the campaign trail when he said he would abolish the U.S. Department of Education.

The president-elect is known for getting things done, but it’s a task that other Republican leaders also have attempted and failed to accomplish, including the iconic Ronald Reagan.

During a September rally in Wisconsin, Trump told voters his administration will “ultimately eliminate the federal Department of Education,” CNN reported.

“We will drain the government education swamp and stop the abuse of your taxpayer dollars to indoctrinate America’s youth with all sorts of things that you don’t want to have our youth hearing,” Trump said.

The federal agency is massive. It began in 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, and now employs more than 4,000 people with an annual budget of about $80 billion, according to Inside Higher Ed.

The department is in charge of, among other things, financial aid and student loans for college students, career and vocational education funding, and regulations that allow male athletes who identify as transgender to compete in women’s collegiate sports.

Getting rid of it is a monumental task. According to the report:

[F]ew higher education policy experts believe the department’s days are actually numbered. They point out that even Trump didn’t get on board with abolishing the agency during his first term, proposing instead to merge the Departments of Education and Labor. But momentum for the idea has grown since 2016, and Trump has made it more of an issue.

This time around, conservative groups, most notably Project 2025, have offered up some plans about how to dismantle the department in more detail, such as moving the federal student loan programs to the Treasury Department. (Project 2025, led by the conservative Heritage Foundation, offers a blueprint for overhauling the federal government in Trump’s second term.) …

More broadly, critics warn that dismantling the Education Department could make it more difficult for students to access federal financial aid, imperil institutions that rely on federal money and make higher education a riskier bet, though that’s a worst-case scenario.

A lack of public and U.S. Congressional support also could get in the way.

As The Economist reported last week:

To truly eliminate the ED, and the tasks within it, Congress would need to act. That probably won’t happen. Reagan realised as much in 1985. “I have no intention of recommending the abolition of the department to the Congress at this time,” he wrote … cit[ing] lack of support in Congress as his reason for keeping it.

Mr Trump, if re-elected, would probably face the same obstacle. Americans generally want to fund public schools. Although 60% of adults (and 88% of Republicans) think that the government is spending too much, 65% of adults (and 52% of Republicans) say it is spending too little on education. And even if he could win congressional support, abolishing the ED would not affect what children learn on a daily basis.

But there are strong conservative voices advocating for the department’s abolishment. The Heritage Foundation’s Jonathan Butcher says the agency is “promulgating policies that are either ineffective or illegal (or both).”

“It would be a victory for families and students to end the agency’s losing streak by closing it down,” he wrote recently at Newsweek.

In a 2020 report for Heritage, Butcher recommended that the department’s 100-plus programs be cut to roughly two dozen and given to other agencies to manage. For example, the Department of Justice could oversee the Office for Civil Rights.

Others calling for the department’s abolition include Tim Sheehy, the likely winner of a contested U.S. Senate race in Montana, Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie, and entrepreneur-turned presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.

When it comes to the public, raising awareness about how cutting the department could shrink the national deficit, end the indoctrination of children, and protect women’s sports – not to mention return power to state and local governments where American citizens have more say – could help sway minds.

Few thought Roe v. Wade would be overturned, and that happened under Trump’s previous administration. It’s not an easy task, but the businessman and president-elect just may be the one to finally get the job done.

MORE: ‘Authoritarian regime’: Wesleyan president blasts Trump as threat to ‘undocumented’ students

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