7 Reasons To Care About Trump’s New Department of Education
For Black families in America, education has served as a gateway to upward mobility. Recent changes within the Department of Education (DOE) could close doors that so many of us […] The post 7 Reasons To Care About Trump’s New Department of Education appeared first on Essence.
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The Department of Education’s recent changes will impact all of our families. GettyImages 
By Rachel Ruff ·Updated December 3, 2025 < /> Getting your Trinity Audio player ready… For Black families in America, education has served as a gateway to upward mobility. Recent changes within the Department of Education (DOE) could close doors that so many of us spent generations walking through. The (DOE) is undergoing one of the most significant reorganizations in its 158-year history. The changes are already reshaping what education access will look like.
President Trump has long maintained his desire to dismantle the Department of Education. In March, he signed an executive order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to dismantle the agency, and in July, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) was passed.
In November, the Reimagining and Improving Student Education (RISE) Committee released its final recommendations to implement the changes from the OBBBA, and six new interagency agreements are moving core programs to the Departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services, and State.
Here are 7 ways these actions to dismantle the DOE could negatively affect Black families.
1. Graduate Borrowing Gets Harder For Financially Disadvantaged StudentsThe RISE Committee finalized these new rules, which will take effect in July 2026:
The borrowing limits are now $20,500 per year, with a cap of $100,000 for graduate students. $50,000 per year with a cap of $200,000 for professional students.Parent PLUS Loans are capped at $20,000 per year, with a total cap of $65,000 per student. The new repayment plan, RAP, forces borrowers to immediately enter repayment on Direct Loans when leaving school.For Black graduate students, who are more likely to borrow for graduate and professional degrees, these decisions could shut the door on obtaining advanced credentials.
2. New Borrowing Caps Only Apply to “Professional” ProgramsPublic discussion on how the OBBBA defined a “professional degree” has taken social media platforms by storm. Based on the initial recommendations only select programs including Law (L.L.B or J.D.) and Medicine (M.D.), would be considered for the $200,000 borrowing limit.
The U.S. currently faces a severe health care worker shortage. And, Black workers, who make up 26.9 percent of health service jobs but only 13.3 percent of healthcare practitioner roles, already face financial barriers to advanced training.
Without higher loan limits for health professions, counseling, or education graduate programs, the shortage is likely to worsen in the coming years. And, Black representation in those fields may decline.
3. PK-12 Gets a New LandlordThe first significant shift in the Education Department’s core responsibilities is the transfer of federal PK–12 programs to the Department of Labor (DOL). These programs include Title I-V programs, Education for Homeless Children and Youths, and Statewide Family Engagement Centers.
“This will undoubtedly create confusion and duplicity,” Washington State’s superintendent told the Associated Press. Other state officials agree the shifts make little to no sense.
For Black communities, disruption to the programs listed in the agreement could be hit the hardest. Head Start, for example, already faced mass terminations and dispersion of services earlier this year. And with 1 in 4 Black children under 18 facing poverty last year, instability in early childhood services risks deepening long-standing educational and health inequities.
4. Higher Education Access Programs Moved To DOLPostsecondary access programs—TRIO, the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund, and programs supporting students with intellectual disabilities—are also being moved to DOL.
A recent POLITICO investigation into this year’s earlier workforce-education pilot found widespread bureaucratic dysfunction and difficulty distributing federal funds. Those challenges could directly affect Black first-generation and low-income students who rely on programs like TRIO to persist through college.
5. New Responsibilities, Old RisksThe Department of the Interior (DOI) will take over several higher education programs serving American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian students. Many Tribal leaders have since said they were not consulted, despite federal law requiring it. The DOI is not structured to oversee complex educational grants, partnerships, and programs.
Although not specific to Black communities, this contradiction has ripple effects for all marginalized communities fighting for educational sovereignty and access.
6. Double Jeopardy With HHSThe National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) will move to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at a time when 25 percent of U.S. physicians graduate from foreign medical schools. With HHS already carrying a healthy public health workload, slower accreditation reviews could constrict the flow of foreign-trained doctors who
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