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WASHINGTON – When President Donald Trump signed the Megaville on July 4th with spending and policy priorities down to law, he distanced himself from one of his goals: the demolition of the U.S. Department of Education.
Congressional Democrats are already trying to get in the way of that effort – sometimes literally. As such, federal courts continue to debate the legality of the president’s attempts to undermine government agencies that affect students and schools across the country.
However, there is one less obvious obstacle. It is what is called “one big and beautiful bill act.”
Starting next year, the law will develop two brand new federal student loan repayment plans. It also expands its college financial aid staple, Pell Grants, to include a few weeks of high school training programs. And it’s bound by a fresh set of rules to protect the university, students and save taxpayers money.
Under the law, there is ultimately one person responsible for implementing these directives. This is Linda McMahon, Secretary of Education.
Her entire department needs to mobilize depletion resources to carry out the wishes of Congress and the President.
That dynamic puts Trump in a troublesome position.
In February, he told McMahon he wanted him to “put himself out of work.” (To do that legally, he needed the support of Senate Democrats, but he doesn’t have it.) But by signing his signature spending law, Trump gave McMahon a laundry list of important things.
And when you ask them, they can’t turn into reality or they can’t easily change it. Trump has cut the agency’s workers in half this year, and the Supreme Court on July 14 allowed more than 1,000 workers to be fired while the layoffs were challenged in court.
“There is a great concern that the speed of the cut will leave departments that cannot effectively implement this law,” Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the right-leaning think tank at the American Enterprise Institute, told USA Today in a recent webinar.
These concerns were echoed by John Funsmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council of Education, the country’s leading higher education association.
“You can definitely predict a lot of problems,” he said.
University financial aid administrators have warned students who rely on school payments of “significant confusion.”
Despite that concern, the top education department officials emphasize that the institution is properly positioned to enact the law. On July 18, the agency released some guidance on implementation, with more information being provided “in weeks and months,” said top agency official Jeffrey Andrade.
“Within President Trump’s first six months, the department responsibly streamlined the functions of federal student aid, managed and streamlined,” Deputy Chief Ellen Keyst said in a statement to USA Today. “We will continue to provide meaningful, timely and timely results while implementing the President’s OBBB (‘One Big Beautiful Bill’) to better serve students, families and administrators. ”
New student loan repayment plan, expanding Pel Grant
For those who take on new federal student loans after July 1, 2026, the law eliminates all current repayment programs and replaces them with only two: standard plans and plans based on borrower income.
Over 40 million Americans who already have federal student loan debt have access to several old repayment plans. However, the 8 million borrowers who have registered on President Joe Biden’s signature repayment plan will need to switch to another by 2028.
All of that work will be carried out by the Federal Student Aid Office, a branch of the Education Department.
“One Big and Beautiful Bill Act” also creates a special type of Pergrant. It will be available to students who are enrolled in a short-term program of 8-15 weeks in areas such as beauty and welding.
The education department must ensure that schools can receive the money by July 2026 and begin screening.
Surveillance rules for different universities
Additionally, Trump’s new law employs the education department to implement a framework for awarding universities to get jobs that pay students well after graduation.
Republicans call this measure the “no harm” test. Simply put, if these schools do not provide a return on investment, they deprive the university program of the ability to force students to take away federal loans.
Education staff need to do a lot to fully implement the program.
They probably need data from the university, the Internal Revenue Service, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state, Funsmith said. All that information must be tallied and calculated in tens of thousands of programs and thousands of schools over the years.
Robert Jason Cottrell, a data coordinator for the Post-Secondary Education Bureau before his firing in March, said he feared that the education department would rely too heavily on contractors to get it all done.
“I don’t know if that will work,” he said.
Echoing FAFSA Challenge
It is not the first time in recent years that the education department has been tasked with implementing major changes to students.
Finally, it didn’t work very well.
In December 2020, Congress passed a law to simplify free applications for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This is a format that most students must fill out annually to receive financial aid.
But the rollout became Haywire, putting millions of college dreams in danger. There were many reasons why government agencies were baffled by the enforcement of the law. Some federal officials have denounced external contractors who were doing much of the work due to a lack of education departments. Other critics said former President Joe Biden spent much of his time prioritizing student loan forgiveness.
Regardless of the cause, the effect was devastating. Some students have decided to delay the university or abandon it altogether. Parents made important decisions without sufficient information. And the university lost faith in the federal financial aid system.
But things get better. The form has improved after Biden’s education department brought in a special team to focus on FAFSA. Now it’s easier than ever to fill out.
In many university financial aid offices, injuries from the FAFSA crisis are still fresh. And since the education sector was laid off, schools have struggled to get in touch with the government due to their daily demands. These issues have already impacted their ability to help students.
In a July 14th statement, Melanie Stories, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, stressed that students and schools need to be more clear about what comes next.
“With substantial work on the horizon to implement one big beautiful bill law, we reiterate concerns that the Trump administration has not shared details of its plans to redistribute departmental work in a way that does not cause major disruption to American college students,” she said.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA Today. You can contact him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @Zachschermele and follow Bluesky at @Zachschermele.bsky.social.
