A 3-pronged strategy to closing the division of schooling: How Trump and Musk may make it occur

After being inaugurated for his second time period on January 20, 2025, President Trump is transferring forward with one in every of his longstanding guarantees: dismantling the US Division of Training. Though this purpose has been a degree of competition for a lot of Republican leaders over time, it has remained largely unfulfilled. Nonetheless, a brand new proposal by Christopher F. Rufo in Metropolis Journal outlines how this bold imaginative and prescient may very well be realized — with the help of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk and his workforce at DOGE.
Rufo, a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute, offers an in depth plan that targets the core features of the Division of Training, which oversees every thing from pupil loans to Ok-12 funding. In line with Rufo’s proposal, Trump’s purpose of dismantling the division may lastly grow to be a actuality with a strategic, three-pronged strategy: restructuring the coed mortgage system, decentralizing Ok-12 funding, and eliminating the ideological affect throughout the division. With Musk’s observe document of cost-cutting and restructuring at firms like Twitter, Rufo believes this reform may very well be executed swiftly and successfully.
The important thing components of the proposal
Rufo’s suggestion begins with the large federal pupil mortgage portfolio, which quantities to $1.7 trillion. The concept is to spin off the coed mortgage program into an unbiased entity, successfully separating it from the Division of Training. Presently, the federal government backs an unlimited sum in pupil loans, a system that many see as unsustainable. By privatizing a lot of the mortgage system and limiting the issuance of recent loans, Rufo proposes that the burden of pupil debt may very well be lowered, whereas the executive overhead can be slashed considerably.
The subsequent step includes Ok-12 schooling. Rufo argues that the federal authorities’s involvement in Ok-12 funding — roughly $100 billion per 12 months — needs to be lowered. As an alternative of funneling funds by means of Washington, the plan requires block grants to states, which might then have the flexibleness to determine how the cash is spent. This is able to remove the usually cumbersome federal tips and restrictions that include federal help, whereas permitting states to raised deal with native instructional wants.
Shutting down the ideological equipment
Maybe essentially the most controversial a part of Rufo’s proposal is the elimination of the Division of Training’s ideological affect. He claims that the division has grow to be a breeding floor for left-wing activism, pushing progressive insurance policies on points like race and gender into native colleges. To deal with this, Rufo recommends dismantling the division’s “ideological manufacturing” facilities and redirecting civil rights features to the Division of Justice. This is able to considerably curtail the division’s function in shaping instructional content material, particularly in relation to divisive social points.
A imaginative and prescient for the longer term
In Rufo’s view, the Division of Training is an inefficient and ideological behemoth that must be dismantled in favor of a extra localized, market-driven system. Whereas Trump has lengthy advocated for lowering the scale of presidency, this proposal gives a concrete solution to shrink the federal schooling paperwork. By combining Trump’s political will with Musk’s cost-cutting ingenuity, Rufo believes this radical transformation of US schooling couldn’t solely be completed however may additionally spark a broader motion for decentralization and reform.
In conclusion, if applied, Rufo’s plan may profoundly reshape US schooling. The mixture of a smaller federal authorities, privatized pupil loans, and extra native management over Ok-12 funding would mark a dramatic departure from the present system. Whether or not or not the Trump administration will transfer ahead with such sweeping reforms stays to be seen, however for now, the proposal gives a imaginative and prescient of a future with out the Division of Training.