President Trump announced Friday that the education sector would either not manage the country's $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio or oversee special education services in large-scale reforms to agencies he was trying to eliminate.
Trump said student loans will move under the Small Business Administration and special education services will move under the Department of Health and Human Services along with the nutrition program.
Trump told reporters that he gathered in an oval office. He added that the move will take place “quickly,” and that he believes the restructuring will “work very well.”
“You'll have a much better and better education than you have now, at half the cost,” he added.
Trump on Thursday was an executive order aimed at laying the foundation for his announcement and shutting down the Department of Education. The department cannot be closed without Congressional approval. However, since Trump took office, his administration has cut more than half the departmental workforce and eliminated $600 million in grants. Reassigning key features makes the agency even more empty.
In order, the president compared the size of his federal student loan portfolio with that of bank Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo had over 200,000 employees, but only 1,500 people worked for the Federal Student Aid Office in the education department.
“The Department of Education must return banking capabilities to entities equipped to serve American students, not banks,” the order states.
The move will move some of the biggest programs that the education sector handles to institutions that have minimal involvement in schools and experience reduced staffing.
The Small Business Administration, led by Kelly Loeffler, announced Thursday it would cut 43% of its approximately 6,500 workers, while the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., provided acquisitions to most of its approximately 80,000 employees.
Kennedy has campaigned to improve nutrition and remove ultra-highly processed foods from school lunches.
However, he also denounced many polarized statements denounce environmental toxins and the food system broken due to the “epidemic” of chronic disease that left American children among the most sick people in developed countries.
He also supports fringe theory about the role that diet can play in preventing diseases such as measles, raising questions about the effectiveness and safety of proven vaccines, and claims it causes autism.
