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- By Native News Online Staff
The American Indian College Fund issued the following statement on Friday, March 21, 2025 relating to President Donald Trump's executve order that seeks to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education:
On March 20 President Trump signed an Executive Order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. The directive will require an Act of Congress to officially eliminate the Cabinet-level agency, and it is not clear whether the President has the votes in Congress to do so. This comes on the heels of the Trump Administration’s cuts to the agency’s work force by nearly 50 percent (1300 people were fired after 600 decided to resign). Both the cuts and the Executive Order raise questions about whether the government can still accomplish the department’s core functions required by law without disrupting its important services to students and communities.
The Department of Education’s role includes distributing money to college students through grants and loans. It also funds and ensures services for low-income and disabled student programs at K-12 schools and enforces anti-discrimination laws. The Trump Administration announced it will move student loan administration to the Small Business Administration and special education services along with nutrition programs to the Department of Health and Human Services. Both moves will require significant changes at the SBA and DHHS.
The department also conducted critical research to help institutions and policymakers understand college affordability for students (including Native students who often demonstrate the greatest financial need), post-secondary-level student enrollment, Native student persistence and graduation trends, and workforce readiness of graduates. Nearly all staff in this area were laid off during the reduction in force, and the contract cancellations raised serious concerns about the integrity, privacy, and security of sensitive student data collected. Last week the American Indian College Fund joined 90 organizations and researchers to call on Congress to protect postsecondary data and demand transparency around the cancellations that shift our country away from evidence-based policymaking that supports students to uninformed guesswork jeopardizing the higher education system.
Yesterday’s Executive Order calls on Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to “facilitate” closing the department without eliminating most of its core functions, while working “to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.” According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, “Those programs include distributing more than $100 billion in student financial aid through Pell Grants and loans, as well as seeking to ensure that students’ civil rights are protected while they pursue their college education.”
Yet the Trump Administration also announced it will focus civil rights enforcement on allegations of antisemitism. People with pending investigations are concerned their cases, including those with allegations of sex discrimination, will remain in limbo.
The American Indian College Fund is concerned that Native students, whose equitable access to higher education hinges on federal programs (which are tied to Native tribes’ trust and treaty relationship with the federal government) will be disproportionately and negatively impacted by the dismantling of the department and the haphazard way the Trump Administration is going about it. The Administration has said it wants to return education to the states, however, Native nations do not have treaty relationships with the states—our relationships are with the federal government, which has committed through legally binding treaties and trusts to provide Native people with education and other services in exchange for the land Native people gave. And while Native people are also citizens of states, we know from experience that state and tribal relations in education and other areas can be strained, thus creating a climate of uncertainty regarding state support of Native education.”
In addition, we are concerned that dismantling the Department of Education will harm Native students by disrupting the application process for federal student financial aid, and the processing of federal student loans, Pell Grants, student work-study programs that a majority of Native students rely upon for financial access to a higher education. And we are not just concerned about the harm to Native students. All students, their families and communities, and the taxpayers who rely upon the goods and services that educated graduates provide will also be harmed if they cannot access a higher education. In addition, the quality and reputation of our nation’s education system, which has until now been the envy of the world, will also be harmed.
“These actions against the higher education community, students, and families will make it more difficult for Native communities—indeed all communities—to have their basic needs met,” said Cheryl Crazy Bull, President and CEO of the American Indian College Fund.
“Without the Department of Education, we are concerned about the ability of the federal government to fulfill its promise of delivering on all statutory programs, including student loans and Pell Grants, funding for higher education institutions, enforcement of civil rights protections in higher education.
To act, please contact your House Representative today and ask them to protect the Department of Education. You can find your Representative using the USA.gov tool.
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