Sparks flew on Capitol Hill Thursday as Education Secretary Linda McMahon traded sharp words with House Democrats over the Trump administration’s push to wipe out her own agency. The high stakes hearing touched student loans, civil rights protections, and the future of federal schooling for millions of American kids. What she said next stunned the room.
McMahon Faces Heated Grilling on Capitol Hill
U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon sparred with Democrats on the House education committee Thursday on a visit to Capitol Hill to defend the Trump administration’s new budget proposal. The lawmakers and education secretary tussled over several key education issues that will affect the lives of millions of Americans, including whether new Republican caps on federal student loans will lower the cost of college, what role the government should play in trying to improve abysmal literacy rates among U.S. students, and whether the U.S. Department of Education should exist at all.
The tone was set from the start. Starting with their opening statements, McMahon and the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, made clear the hearing wasn’t just about the U.S. Department of Education’s budget for the next fiscal year; it was an existential fight over the department itself.
“The American people elected President Trump with a clear mandate: to sunset a 46-year-old, $3 trillion failed federal education bureaucracy in Washington, D.C., and return authority to where it belongs, to parents, teachers and local leaders,” McMahon told lawmakers.
Scott fired back hard. In his opening remarks, he told McMahon, “The Trump administration has not returned education to the states, rather it has empowered you to effectively dismantle one of the country’s strongest civil rights institutions.”
Half the Staff Gone, Programs Shipped Out
The numbers tell their own story. According to data from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the Department of Education has gone from roughly 4,200 employees in 2024 to 2,300 in 2026.
In addition to cutting staff by roughly 45%, the administration has offloaded more than 100 programs and department obligations onto other federal agencies, including many elementary and secondary education programs to the Department of Labor (DOL) and efforts at improving family engagement to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Bigger shifts are still coming. In one of the latest big shifts, in March, the department announced a transition of the nation’s massive federal student loan portfolio to the U.S. Treasury Department. By August, remaining department employees will be physically moved from the department’s longtime, Washington, D.C., headquarters to a smaller office roughly a block away.
Republicans on the panel cheered her on. “I hope you’re the last secretary of education,” Republican Rep. Randy Fine of Florida told her, intending it as a compliment, not a critique.
But the rollout has not gone smoothly. According to internal Education Department documents obtained by NPR, the department’s student loan office, which was cut in half by last year’s reduction-in-force, is now in the middle of a hiring spree. The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is trying to bring in 334 new staff, a tacit acknowledgement that the previous cuts did serious harm to the office’s ability to do its work.
Civil Rights Office Cuts Spark Outrage
One of the most charged moments came over civil rights. McMahon fielded tough questions from Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat, about cuts to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which investigates complaints of discrimination in schools based on students’ sex, race, national origin, disability and more. OCR was hit hard in last year’s layoffs and firings, with roughly half of the office’s staff, including civil rights lawyers, being removed.
After the courts intervened, the department under McMahon chose to keep 247 OCR staff on paid administrative leave, rather than allow them to work, a decision a government watchdog says cost taxpayers between $28.5 million and $38 million. Previous NPR reporting, using public data, captures the effect of the cuts: After Trump’s 2025 inauguration, OCR reached a resolution agreement in just two racial harassment cases the rest of the year.
McMahon tried to walk a fine line. In her House testimony, McMahon insisted that “OCR is important” and said she is actively “rehiring attorneys.” She has even intimated that she disagreed with the original staffing cuts, telling Takano that the administration “had started that process before I came onboard.”
Takano was not buying it. “They were firing half the staff that you need at OCR, and it took you 10 months to figure out that was a mistake.” Then Takano asked McMahon, if she is rehiring lawyers and fully supports the mission of OCR, why does the department’s own budget propose a new 35% cut in funding to the office?
McMahon’s answer raised eyebrows. McMahon answered that the budget document “is a floor for hiring. We want to increase those numbers.” A moment later, in the hearing, McMahon said the funding proposal is “not where we want to be.”
Student Loan Caps and the MEGA Grant Battle
Wallets across America are about to feel the squeeze. One subject brought up by Democrats and Republicans was the new limit on federal student loan borrowing that was passed as part of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The law does not change limits for undergraduate borrowers but dramatically scales back how much graduate students can borrow. They could previously borrow up to the cost of their program, but new limits cap annual borrowing for most grad students at $20,500 with a total limit of $100,000.
Here is how the new caps stack up:
| Borrower Type | Annual Cap | Lifetime Cap |
|---|---|---|
| Most graduate students | $20,500 | $100,000 |
| Medicine, law, dentistry | $50,000 | $200,000 |
| Undergraduate students | No change | No change |
Critics say this could choke the pipeline of future workers in needed fields. Democrats argued these new graduate loan limits would lead to shortages in teaching, social work and nursing. Fine, the Florida Republican, echoed the concern over a potential shortage of skilled healthcare workers and asked McMahon, “Does it make sense for us to take a field where we have real shortages and create a situation where we may not be able to create the [healthcare workers] we need, where we already don’t have enough?”
McMahon held firm. She argued that these caps are intended to force colleges to lower their prices. “It is our overall goal to bring down the cost of college and education,” McMahon told Fine.
The budget also pushes a flashy new K-12 plan. McMahon and several committee Republicans touted the administration’s proposed MEGA (Make Education Great Again) grants as a powerful new tool to help states improve literacy. However, these proposed grants would actually be a funding cut to schools, by consolidating 17 current programs (including for English learners and rural schools) funded at roughly $6.5 billion into a block grant worth less than a third of that: $2 billion.
Under the proposal, states would have to use 25 percent of their MEGA grant for literacy instruction, 25 percent for math instruction, and the remaining 50 percent on any of the activities now supported through 17 separate K-12 programs that would be eliminated.
Disability Rights and the Fight Over IDEA
One huge piece of the agency still hangs in limbo. One of the department’s most significant responsibilities, overseeing programs and funding for students with disabilities, has not yet been offloaded to another federal agency, in part because of fierce pushback from disability-rights advocates.
That fight is far from over. At one point in the hearing, McMahon said she had met with “twenty-something” disability groups to hear their concerns. McMahon has explored moving the management of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the country’s landmark special education law, to either DOL or HHS, and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, an Oregon Democrat, used Thursday’s hearing to push for clarity on any potential move.
The back and forth grew tense. McMahon said, “We have not yet made a determination of where IDEA services would go.” “Do you plan to transfer the services to another agency? Yes or no,” Bonamici shot back.
Thursday’s hearing painted a vivid picture of a department in deep transition, with millions of students, parents, and teachers caught somewhere in the middle. From shrinking civil rights protections to tighter loan caps and shifting block grants, every choice ripples through homes, classrooms, and college dorms across the country. The fight over what comes next is just getting started, and the stakes for American families could not be higher. What do you think about the push to shut down the Education Department? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and join the conversation on social media using #SaveOurSchools and #EducationDepartment.
