What does the US Department of Education do?

Education in the United States—from early childhood to higher education—is largely funded and governed by states and localities. The federal government plays a comparatively small financial and operational role in K-12 and postsecondary education. However, its role is vital to supporting students’ access to high-quality educational opportunities and preparing an engaged citizenry and future workforce.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is tasked with serving America’s students by administering and coordinating several of the largest and most consequential federal education programs, along with serving its other legislatively defined purposes. With 4,233 employees as of May 2024, ED’s workforce is the smallest of the 15 Cabinet-level executive departments.

Despite its modest role and size, ED has long been a target of Republican efforts to close or diminish it. This began in ED’s earliest days, when Ronald Reagan called for its elimination. In theory, many of ED’s duties could be administered by a different part of the federal government, and both President Trump and Project 2025 have called for this type of reorganization. However, most of the Department’s key activities have been specifically assigned to ED in legislation, meaning Congress would need to amend those laws to move those functions elsewhere.

While the president does not have the authority to eliminate ED, which was created by an act of Congress, this administration’s plans—and commitment to restraining itself to its legitimate powers—remain unclear. Here, we provide a brief overview of the federal role in education and describe how ED carries out those responsibilities. Additional information about what the Trump administration can and cannot do with ED is available in our accompanying FAQ document.

Although the U.S. Constitution says nothing of a federal role in education, the contours of that role have been defined through decades of legislation, court decisions, and traditions. Its role includes providing support and compensatory funding to improve educational opportunities, protecting students’ civil rights, and facilitating research and development to inform educational policy and practice.  

Today’s U.S. Department of Education was created via the Department of Education Organization Act (of 1979), which established ED’s core structure and responsibilities. Chief among these responsibilities is administering an assortment of federal education laws and programs—many of which predate ED itself. Notable federal education legislation dates back to the Civil War and Reconstruction era with the establishment of land-grant colleges and historically Black colleges. (In fact, the first iteration of the U.S. Department of Education arose in this same period.)

A century later, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty” produced a burst of federal education legislation, featuring the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and Higher Education Act (HEA), both of which passed in 1965. Those laws created programs that provide funding to support students and institutions in K-12 and higher education. This includes the Title I program, as well as the Federal Pell Grant and federal student loan programs. In 1975, the precursor to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was enacted to support children with disabilities. Prior to the establishment of the modern-day U.S. Department of Education, these programs were administered by the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).

Congress, along with passing federal education laws, appropriates funds each year during the annual budget process. ED is responsible for managing the timely disbursement of these funds for some programs and ensuring compliance with congressionally determined requirements for receiving those funds. Other federal laws and programs are administered by different federal agencies. This includes Head Start (by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), the National School Lunch Program (by the U.S. Department of Agriculture), and the GI Bill (by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs).

In addition to administering federal education programs, ED is responsible for protecting students’ civil rights and investing in education research.

Funding for elementary and secondary education

About 90% of funding for local public schools comes from state and local governments, with the federal government providing the rest. During emergencies (such as the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic), the federal government has provided additional resources, temporarily increasing the federal share of elementary and secondary school funding.

Federal funding for elementary and secondary education is largely compensatory. That is, districts serving more disadvantaged students receive more funding. Title I of ESEA, which provides grants to local school districts to support educationally disadvantaged students (largely based on the share or number of children living in poverty), is the largest federal funding stream ($18.4 billion in FY 2024). This is followed closely by IDEA, which supports students with disabilities ($15.5 billion). Other smaller funding streams include those that send money to local school districts to support teacher professional development (ESEA Title II) and education for English Learners (ESEA Title III). Impact Aid provides federal funding to school districts with a large federal presence (either land owned by the federal government or land belonging to Native American communities that is exempt from local taxation).

Notably, all of these programs allocate money according to formulas defined by Congress. ED does not decide how much each district receives but is simply tasked with disbursing funding according to the congressionally-defined formulas (some of which are quite complex).

Funding for postsecondary education

With HEA, Congress authorized several postsecondary education funding streams. For example, Title II provides funding for teacher education, while Title III funds support minority-serving institutions. Title IV is perhaps the best-known and largest funding program under HEA; Title IV programs provide financial support that students can use at eligible postsecondary institutions. This includes the Pell Grant program and Federal Work Study program.

In addition to providing financial aid to students and support for colleges, HEA authorizes the Student Loan Program. The underlying rationale for these programs is that higher education is an investment that typically pays off in the form of higher wages and other benefits over a lifetime, but many students do not have the funds to invest in their education as much as they might like. The inability of unregulated private financial markets to provide enough student loans to facilitate these investments has long been understood.

The Federal Student Loan Program, authorized and governed by HEA, fills this gap. This funding provides critical access to postsecondary opportunities for students, ranging from low- and middle-income undergraduates to law and medical students. Much of the money that goes out through the program is paid back with interest, though some loans are subsidized explicitly or implicitly. The federal government currently issues student loans through the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan program, and the loans are administered by private loan servicers. Prior to the expansion of the Direct Loan Program in the 2010s, rather than lend directly, the government guaranteed student loans that private lenders disbursed and managed through the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program.    

Students have several options to repay their student loans, including several income-driven repayment (IDR) programs that provide borrowers with options for loan forgiveness after a certain number of qualifying payments are made. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program (PSLF), authorized by the 2007 College Cost Reduction and Access Act, reduces the time to loan forgiveness to 10 years for government and nonprofit workers. ED promulgates the regulations implementing these programs and works with private loan servicers to administer them. The Biden administration issued new regulations establishing Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), a more generous IDR plan, and modifying some regulations related to PSLF and other IDR plans. That rule is in legal limbo, disrupting the administration of the student loan repayment system.

ED also administers the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), the form which determines individual eligibility for Title IV funds. (States also frequently use FAFSA data to determine students’ eligibility for state financial aid.) Implementing and processing FAFSA is the responsibility of the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), though FSA has been notoriously understaffed for years, which likely has contributed to challenges in administering programs. FSA implemented the provisions in the FAFSA Simplification Act of 2020, which called for a revamped application process and changed the underlying eligibility formula. However, the rollout of the form was plagued with technical difficulties, and many students struggled to complete the form at all.

Given that the Constitution limits the federal role in education, the primary way that Congress and presidential administrations have sought influence over education is by tying federal funding to certain conditions or policy priorities. This is perhaps the most contentious aspect of the federal government’s role—dating back to the federal push to desegregate public schools. States, districts, schools, and institutions can only receive the funding described above if they meet certain conditions and spend the money according to the rules specified in the relevant laws. ED implements these requirements by writing regulations and monitoring compliance.

In K-12 education, for example, Title I ESEA funds must be spent on educational services for economically disadvantaged students and IDEA funds on services for students with disabilities. ED then monitors that the money is spent as Congress specified. They do this by issuing regulations and guidance, requiring states and districts to report certain spending data, and auditing spending. While monitoring how funds are spent is clearly necessary, some have argued that compliance costs are too high (too much “red tape”) or that enforcement is not always successful at meeting its goals.

Before the early 2000s, the only fiscal strings attached to federal K-12 money through ESEA was compliance with federal civil rights law. That changed with Congress’ reauthorization of ESEA, also known as the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which was enacted in 2002. NCLB required states to implement standardized testing and accountability programs satisfying federal requirements to receive funding. Although states had discretion in how they designed their accountability programs, NCLB represented a significant (and controversial) expansion of federal oversight of K-12 education. The latest reauthorization of ESEA, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which passed during the Obama administration, significantly relaxed testing and accountability requirements compared to NCLB. Under ESSA, states still need to administer standardized testing in certain grades and subjects and report the results publicly, though requirements that schools make progress to improve scores were eliminated. ESSA also requires states to report data on spending at the school level. ED collects the required data and enforces these rules.

While the federal government has leveraged funding requirements to influence state and local policies, the General Education Provisions Act (GEPA) explicitly prohibits the federal government from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration or personnel or any educational institution (…) or over the selection of library resources, textbooks or other printed or published instructional materials.” ESSA contains similar language to emphasize that nothing in ESSA implies a more expansive role for federal government in these areas (Sec. 8526A). Efforts from the federal government to influence what K-12 schools teach are in direct violation of this law (as affirmed by an executive order issued during the first Trump administration).

In postsecondary education, prior administrations have promulgated regulations under HEA to increase accountability in postsecondary programs. These regulations promote transparency around the costs of college and student outcomes. As one example, regulations state that an institution loses its Title IV eligibility if a large share of its students default on their federal student loans. The Biden administration enacted new regulations around “gainful employment” (GE) to remove institutions’ Title IV eligibility if they fail to show graduates of career training programs earn enough to justify the student loans they borrowed. Similar GE efforts were initially implemented during the Obama administration but repealed during the first Trump administration before they were fully implemented.

How ED enacts regulations is governed by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), which specifies a timeline to release a draft rule, allow for and respond to public comment, and finalize the rule. Historically, there has been deference to executive agencies to develop and issue such regulations (what was known as “Chevron deference”). However, the recent U.S. Supreme Court Loper Bright Enterprises decision upended Chevron, ruling that individual regulations should be subject to greater scrutiny and judicial review. The extent to which the current Court will use that standard to upend the current administration’s rulemaking remains to be seen.

In addition to withholding federal funds or cutting off an institution’s eligibility to receive Title IV funding, ED enacts fines for violations of policy. In higher education, these are typically violations of the Clery Act that requires disclosure of campus crime statistics or institutions failing to report timely and accurate data to ED.

Another key role that the federal education department plays is protecting students’ civil rights. ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) enforces several federal civil rights laws in K-12 and postsecondary institutions that receive federal funding (including all K-12 public schools and most colleges and universities). In all, OCR is responsible for protecting students from discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin (Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964), sex (Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972), age (Age Discrimination Act of 1975), and disability status (Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990).

OCR primarily enforces these laws by investigating concerns of civil rights violations, initiated either proactively or in response to the thousands of civil rights complaints the agency receives annually. Institutions found in violation of civil rights law can lose federal funding or have their case referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for further action. Still, in practice, enforcement penalties are exceedingly rare. When potential civil rights violations are identified, OCR typically negotiates voluntary resolution agreements with educational institutions that outline reforms to policy and practice that the institution will implement (with OCR’s oversight).

OCR also releases non-binding guidance on compliance with federal law and emerging civil rights issues and collects biannual data from PK-12 schools on ongoing civil rights issues through the Civil Rights Data Collection.

Additional information on OCR is available in our accompanying piece on federal civil rights enforcement in education.

The federal government also plays a vital role supporting education research and development. Given the decentralized nature of our K-12 and higher education systems, the federal government is uniquely positioned to facilitate the production and dissemination of high-quality research. This includes evaluating—internally or via external research grants—the effectiveness of programs and interventions that aim to improve educational outcomes (e.g., “science of reading” practices or alternative teacher certification programs). Education research is among our most important tools for improving school performance and efficiency. Supporting this research has been described as “the oldest and most fundamental of all federal activities bearing on ‘the cause of education throughout the country’.”

The federal investment in R&D amounts to a tiny share of the nation’s overall education spending. For context, ED’s research and evaluation arm, the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), was appropriated a little less than $800 million in FY 2024. This is a drop in the bucket relative to the more than $1.5 trillion the U.S. spends annually on elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education. IES administers nationally representative surveys, manages large-scale data collection efforts, funds education research and innovation, and disseminates new insights about teaching and learning to educators and policymakers across the country (at no cost to access).

IES’s work includes the congressionally mandated National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (or the “Nation’s Report Card”), which tests students in grades 4, 8, and 12. NAEP enables policymakers and education leaders to track student learning over time and across states. In recent years, NAEP scores have helped identify significant declines in learning since the COVID-19 pandemic as well as instances where states have bucked national trends and might offer case studies for effective education recovery. In addition, IES administers annual national surveys of states and school districts that provide information about the state of the American school system and the distribution of students, teachers, and other resources across districts and states.

IES also awards research grants to universities and research institutions, along with conducting its own evaluations of federal programs and policies. These investments aim to improve our understanding of which educational policies and practices are (and are not) effective in improving student performance. To this end, IES also invests in developing local research capacity. This includes providing funds for states to develop longitudinal data systems and running 10 Regional Educational Laboratories (RELs) across the country that bring researchers, policymakers, and practitioners together to improve student outcomes. IES also disseminates the findings of rigorously conducted research via its What Works Clearinghouse—a repository of evidence on education policies and practices.

Congress has authorized spending on a wide range of educational activities, from grants to local school districts to financial aid and student loans, to research funding. The U.S. Department of Education ensures that those congressionally authorized funds reach students and schools and monitor the spending of those taxpayer dollars.

Although public education in the United States is largely funded and controlled by state and local governments, the federal government fulfills several key functions that states have shown they will not or cannot take on. This includes providing key investments and oversight to help ensure that all students have access to quality educational opportunities.