According to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration could take executive action as early as this week to dismantle the Education Department to scale back on government spending, a plan touted by billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk, the Trump administration and others who favor this move want to eliminate all agency functions that aren’t directly written into statute and transfer certain functions to other government departments. While an executive order could initiate these changes, a legislative proposal with congressional support is still required to become law.

Some conservatives have supported Trump’s efforts to limit the federal government in education, giving states total control over what they deem best for schools, educators and children. They also want to slash protections made under the Biden administration, which included student loan forgiveness and sex discrimination in education for LGBTQ+ people. However, other officials argue that the move is too soon, as the Senate has not yet confirmed Trump’s education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, nor has a hearing been scheduled, per WSJ.

The plan to shut down the Education Department still poses a risk for the Trump administration. Here’s everything about the federal agency, including its launch, key activities and protections, and whether it can be abolished successfully with congressional approval.

The Education Department was created in 1979 under former President Jimmy Carter

The National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union in the country, supported the proposal. According to the Journal, despite its extensive list of programs, the National Education Association remains the smallest agency in the federal workforce.

While Trump and his allies plan to cut the Education Department, they cannot remove federal programs that provide grants for low-income students, regulate how schools serve students with disabilities, enforce civil rights laws, and administer the federal student loan program.

According to NPR, these programs are essential, providing federal funding for public schools. Title I, which supports districts serving lower-income communities, received $15.6 billion in funding from the U.S. government in 2022. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which helps districts serve students with disabilities, saw over $15 billion in spending in FY 2024.

In addition to the Education Department, these two programs were created by separate acts of Congress, Title I in 1965 and IDEA in 1975.

What do experts say about cutting these federal programs?

Dan Zibel, a former top lawyer in the Education Department and now chief counsel at the National Student Legal Defense Network, shared his thoughts on the likelihood of removing these programs.

“These are all programs that Congress established and knowingly housed inside the Department of Education,” Zibel told NPR. “Any changes to those programs would not only be short-sighted but require a new vote of Congress.”

According to Zibel, the Trump administration would transfer large-scale developments like Federal Student Aid and student loan information to the Department of the Treasury, but this still needs congressional approval.

“A lot of what the administration is doing is testing boundaries,” Rick Hess of the conservative-based American Enterprise Institute told NPR, “so we’ll see how this works and what might happen in court. I imagine there will be some thinning of the workforce, but it’s hard to predict how aggressively they’ll move.”

Education Department staffers on paid administrative leave

The Associated Press reported that more than a dozen U.S. Department of Education employees were put on paid administrative leave as part of Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government.

“It seems unfair to encourage or require people to take a training and then four or five years later place them on administrative leave,” Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, told the outlet.

The department employs more than 4,000 workers in Washington and regional offices nationwide. According to the AP, the employees told to stay home could impact federal student loans and the processing of FAFSA forms for student loan aid.