President Donald Trump wants to eliminate the federal Department of Education, but that’s not to say he won’t use it while it’s still around.
“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said at a White House signing ceremony on Thursday with a host of GOP governors in attendance. “It’s doing us no good.”
Trump has already cut the agency’s workforce in half, reducing it from roughly 4,200 to 2,100 employees through a combination of layoffs and deferred resignations.
Despite the president’s pledge to gut the department, the White House nonetheless clarified that the agency will continue to exist, albeit “much smaller,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Leavitt initially said that functions like Pell Grants and student loans “will remain” under the Education Department’s purview, though Trump announced Friday that student loans will be handled by the Small…
