Trump’s order dismantling DOEd leaves effects on K-12, higher education uncertain
(The Daily Orange | March 26, 2025) During his second campaign, President Donald Trump repeatedly asserted plans to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education — a goal many education policy experts and economists dismissed as unlikely.
That changed last Thursday.
Trump’s March 20 executive order pledging to dismantle the department was unprecedented, leaving its potential effects on K-12 and higher education uncertain.
Although the SU undergraduate community has yet to see a direct campus impact following the order, George Theoharis, a professor of educational leadership and inclusive education, said graduate students are noticing changes in their research programs.
An SU graduate program working to institute special education systems in Uzbekistan had previously partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development and relied on federal funding, Theoharis said. Following Trump’s order, the program lost its funding and is now unable to function, he said.
“One of the reasons that so many people from around the world come to the United States is for our higher education system, and we’re seeing a moment where we are trying to destabilize and fundamentally dismantle that,” Theoharis said. “We will not be the leader of the world in terms of innovation, research and all kinds of things that come out of a productive higher education.”
Theoharis, Drake and Baum all said they expect universities may begin to take legal action against the administration because of its sweeping restrictions. Several institutions, such as Harvard University, have increased their lobbying efforts amid Trump’s second campaign …
By Arabella Klonowski and Julia Boehning