Examining the Policies and Priorities of the Department of Education

Can we have Mr. Czar sit down, sit down please. Sure. Yeah, thanks. Just to show you, we have to make sure that we have enough room for everybody. Can you just hold for me, Stevens? I'm sorry. Just Uh

Oops, it fell, Stevens. Okay.

The committee will please come to order. A quorum is present. Uh, the committee meets today pursuant to notice, without objection, the chair may recess the committee at any point. Good morning, Secretary McMahon. Welc- welcome back to the committee. Under your leadership, the Trump administration is delivering on reforms that will make education less expensive, improve outcomes for students and families, protect civil rights and empower states and local communities with greater freedom to make the education decisions that are right for them. First, I applaud the Department of Education for its swift implementation of the reforms enacted under the working family's tax cuts. That law contains the most significant reforms uh to higher education in more than a decade. The working family's tax cuts will lower college costs and debt burdens for students and families hold schools accountable so they deliver programs that set students up for future success and provide students and workers with new pathways to successful careers. In the months since enactment, the department has pursued an aggressive and consensus-driven im- implementation process. Through two separate negotiated rulemaking processes, the department successfully reached consensus on regulations addressing the law's student loan reforms, accountability system, and Pell grant expansion for short-term workforce programs. Madam Secretary, that's impressive work. Whether we agree totally or not, that's impressive work. At the same time, the department has been tackling broader challenges within our post-secondary education system. First, Madam Secretary, you fixed the FAFSA amazingly. The Biden-Harris administration famously botched the rollout of the updated FAFSA, but under your leadership, the department launched a twenty twenty-six, twenty twenty-seven, FAFSA earlier than ever before. As a result, FAFSA completions increased significantly, giving more students an opportunity to pursue their secondary uh post-secondary dreams. In addition, student loan repayment is finally back on track. The previous administration spent its time pursuing illegal efforts to shift student loan pay debt on taxpayers. While this department is helping borrowers regain their financial footing, and return uh uh to repayment responsibility. The department is also taking the threat of unreported foreign funding seriously by opening new section one seventeen investigations into non-compliant institutions and revamping the reporting portal to increase transparency and public accessibility. Finally, the department is addressing student aid fraud. In recent years, ghost student fraud has cost taxpayers millions of dollars and crowded legitimate students out of classrooms. Criminals are increasingly using AI to expand the scale and sophistication of these schemes exploiting vulnerabilities that were worsened, when key safe safeguards were weakened. Since taking office, however, Secretary McMahon has implemented aggressive anti-fraud measures, including restoring critical safeguards, strengthening identity verification requirements, and improving the department's ability to detect fraudulent activity. Those efforts helped blocked over one billion dollars in attempted fraud in twenty twenty-five alone. Again, Madam Secretary, impressive work. At the K-twelve level, the working family's tax cuts delivered again. That law included a massive expansion of school choice, by allowing taxpayers to subtract up to seventeen hundred dollars from their tax bill for donations made to non-profit scholarship granting organizations or SGOs. Those organizations which must be approved by governors will distribute scholarships to families to help cover tuition, tutoring, special education services, or other education-related expenses. The program will become operational in January, twenty twenty seven, And the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that by twenty thirty-four, the program will make approximately four point four billion dollars available to students and families annually. As of last week, thirty-one states had indicated that they would participate. Unfortunately, most Democrat-led states, including my own, have chosen politics over families thus far. But I was encouraged to hear that Governor Hochul, uh, is to is to opt New York into the program. That's great news. And I hope many other Democrats will follow. Secretary McMahon, while the Treasury Department is responsible for implementation, thank you for working closely with Treasury to ensure this program fulfills its promise of expanding educational freedom for American families. Secretary McMahon, thank you as well for standing up for parents. Whether it's restoring the promise of Title IX for women and girls, or stopping efforts by states and school districts to conceal health and well-being information from parents in violation of FERPA, the department is once again putting parents back in the driver's seat of their children's education where it ought to be. Secretary McMahon, you are also continuing to fight against anti-semitism. Thank you. This committee has been beating the drum on this issue and will continue to do so. Our friends on the other side of the aisle seem interested in this issue only when they believe there is a political benefit to be gained. That's tragic. We've gone after both sides on this issue. Thank you for standing up for Jewish students and educators and for holding institutions accountable when they fail to protect students' safety and access to educational opportunity. Finally, Madam Secretary, I applaud your ongoing efforts to return education decision-making to states and local communities where it belongs. You've already demonstrated that education programs are more effective when administered alongside related workforce economic and community priorities. The committee, uh, looks forward to working with you to advance our shared goal of empowering families, states, and communities to deliver better outcomes for students, families, workers and taxpayers. Secretary McMahon, a thank you again for for being here and I look forward to your testimony. I'll now yield to a ranking member, the gentleman from Virginia, Mister Scott, for his opening statement.

Thank you, Mister, Mister Chairman, and thank you, Secretary McMahon, for your testimony today to discuss the department's priorities and the fact this budget will have on students, teachers and families. When you last testified before the committee in June twenty twenty five, I remarked that the department's mission uh, the mission statement was to quote, strengthen the federal commitment to assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual. Today, as you appear before the committee, I note that the department's mission has changed and it's now quote, fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access for all students of for for students of all ages. Um you'll note that there's a slight difference in those two statements, and that m- difference is the omission of the word federal. Madam Secretary, the department was created when the department was created it was because of the desire that the federal government weigh in to enforce and defend students' civil rights to provide evidence-based resources to low and common rural districts and to administer federal student aid. We know from history that without a federal role in education, we're at a gr- at a greater risk of racial segregation in pub- public schools, risk that states will refuse to educate students with disabilities, and a risk that low income and rural s- communities will suffer drastic educational equities inequities because we generally fund public education with the real estate tax. And now it is not a surprise that the word federal has been eliminated from the department's mission. After all, the president made it very clear that you were selected for this position and charged with dismantling the department. President Trump has repeatedly and incorrectly stated that he wants to return education to the states. Fact is that education is largely already determined by state and local governments, and always has been. States and local agencies, not the federal government, dictate curriculum, determine class sizes, and are responsible for qualifications for teachers and requirements for high school graduation among other decisions The federal role has always been to guarantee equitable access to education as directed by the Brown V Board of Education decision, which said that education is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. So let me be clear, the Trump administration has not returned education to the states, rather it has empowered you to effectively dismantle one of the country's strongest civil rights institutions. As Secretary of Education, you've gone outside the bounds of the law and bypassed Congress to dismantle the department. President Tru- Trump admitted as much on April second at a White House Easter lunch, and you can see his comments over my shoulder when he said in reference to closing the department, You know what? You need congressional approval. I said, don't worry about it, just do it. And she did it. And so under your leadership, the department has lost half of its workforce through either forced retirements or firings, is entered into ten illegal inter-agency agreements, transferring over a hundred programs from the Department of Education to other federal agencies. The department staff has signaled your intention to transfer oversight and support for students with disabilities to another agency. And last month you n- you announced plans to turn the Lyndon B. Johnson Education building over to the Department of Energy. These actions have been taken without congressional approval. And worse, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have decided to abdicate their constitutional responsibility to conduct real oversight into those actions. So I must note that these are not small bureaucratic decisions. These are seismic changes that have already had disastrous consequences for students and families, to say nothing of the chaos, inefficiencies and millions of taxpayer dollars that have been wasted. For example, on February t- in February of twenty twenty six, the Government Accountability Office reported that a department paid Office of Civil Rights investigators up to thirty-eight million dollars not to work. And according to a report the Senate Help Committee released last month in twenty twenty five, The Office of Civil Rights reached zero resolution agreements involving sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion and restraint violations of students with learning or behavioral issues, racial harassment, or discriminatory school discipline. To add a finer point, OCR reached zero resolutions in twenty twenty five despite having more than two thousand seven hundred pending cases. Additionally, we've heard from numerous stakeholders about the problems that have been experienced following your transfer of adult education programs to the Department of Labor. Department of Labor lacks expertise to administer these programs. Adult education programs in the Department of Education offer students lifelong skills such as literacy and support and support in completing a GED. At Labor, the focus on adult education is to just finding the next job, which does not meet the needs of the students in these programs, especially in a world where the demand for upskilling requires both soft and hard skills. Lastly, in March twenty twenty-six, the GAO reported that the Office of Federal Student Aid, which is responsible for the one point seven trillion dollar student loan portfolio, has stopped key oversight of student loan services. As a result, forty-three million borrowers have been left without sufficient support, and without proper oversight, these borrowers may receive inaccurate information or be placed in the wrong repayment plans. At the same time, you announced a plan to transfer some of SF FSA's functions to the Treasury Department, which again lacks the expertise to adequately assist borrowers who may be eligible for discharges of their loans through the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, or other discharge programs or even uh lower uh lower payment plans. This is especially troubling because in the coming weeks seven million borrowers will be moved into a new less affordable repayment plan. Borrower are now closer than ever to defaulting on their loans and urgently need accurate information. Department has indicated that it intends to hire hundreds of staff at the Office of Civil Rights and of FSA. an attempt to course correct. This is a predictable outcome, defying nev- nearly half the department's staff, and would have been avoided had you followed the law. Unfortunately, students who need information on their loans don't have time for this chaos, and families whose children have been denied access to quality education don't have the luxury of as you say hindsight. Taken together, these actions point to a chilling conclusion. The administration is not simply proposing moving a few people to a different building in Washington DC. Now these actions represent the administration's abdication of the federal government's responsibility to ensure that all students, regardless of their race, religion, disability, income or zip code, have access to a quality public education. So we need to know whether the the staffing cuts, inter-agency agreements and enforcement changes comply with the department's legal obligations. We need to understand your plan, for enforcing civil rights in education. We must also gain insight into how student borrowers will be protected among among uh s- reduced oversight. And we'd also like to see how much this new voucher program is gonna cost and what oversight there will be on that program. With that I look forward to your testimony and yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the g- I th- Thank the gentlemen. Uh pursuant to committee rule eight C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the Committee Clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by five PM, fourteen days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for fourteen days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now turn to the introduction of today's witness, the Honorable Linda McMahon. Secretary of the U. S. Department of Education. Madam Secretary, we thank you for being here today. Uh, your second run through this event. We appreciate that. As you are aware, it's your responsibility to provide accurate information to the committee, pursuant to committee rules. I would ask that you limit your oral presentation to a five minute summary of your written statement and with that, Madam Secretary, you're recognized for your testimony.

Thank you. Good morning, Chairman Wahlberg, Ranking Member Scott. And distinguished members of this committee, thank you for having me today. Americans re-elected President Trump with a clear mandate to sunset a forty-six year old three trillion dollar failed education bureaucracy in DC, and return authority to where it belongs, to parents, teachers and local leaders. Amid record low test scores and record high numbers of students buried in debt, Americans want results. Today I can confidently attest that we are delivering on the vision of educational renewal that for decades many promised but none delivered. In the past year I've traveled to over thirty-six states, seeing firsthand the successes and challenges of our education systems and faced uh that they faced and has reinforced my conviction that empowering local leaders and targeting federal dollars toward evidence-based programs are the force multipliers driving our educational renaissance. To that end, my department has carefully scrutinized every dollar of taxpayer investment to ensure that it supports clear pathways to success for our students and our families. We've cut unproductive program funding and redirected those resources to revitalize literacy and vigorate workforce development and support our most vulnerable students. We have conducted an honest assessment of our operational efficacy, shrunk our bloated bureaucracy, and to date, have secured ten partnerships with federal agencies well-equipped to co-administer Department of Education programs. We've stopped burdening local leader leaders with one size fits all mandates, and are now empowering them to design solutions that best support their students. For example, we awarded Iowa the first ever returning education to the state's waiver, which frees millions of dollars in compliance costs. This allows Iowa to devote more resources to proven interventions. like those that led to their double-digit reading gains. And we continue to work closely with other states to help them realize their potential for innovation. We are also expanding affordable, high-quality education options and restoring parents to their rightful role as the primary decision-makers in their child's education. Thanks to President Trump and Republicans in Congress, the Education Freedom Tax Credit gives parents access to critical resources like scholarships, tutoring and specialized services for students with disabilities, whether their child attends public or private school. In K through twelve and higher education alike, the Trump administration is restoring safety, fairness, and equal opportunity for our students. In this administration we have secured seven historic deals with universities to right the wrongs of their pervasive civil rights violations. We've returned integrity to the broken federal student aid system, for the forty-three million Americans holding an astounding one point seven trillion dollars in federal student loan debt. Our simplified free application for federal student aid or FAFSA form launched on the earliest time line in program history leading to a record eleven million submissions to date. We introduced a new earnings indicator so students no longer take on significant debt without clear reliable information. And thanks to our strengthened security measures, we have prevented over a billion dollars in federal student aid fraud. We're also working hard we're also hard at work implementing the Working Families Tax Cuts Act, which simplifies federal student loan repayment, launches a new workforce Pell program, and will make post-secondary education more affordable. And today we're putting forward a request that accelerates these reforms. This year's budget request maintains full funding for the Title one A grants to local education agencies program devoting over eighteen billion dollars to serve children from low income families. It includes thirty-three billion dollars for the Pell grant program, which supports low income students, representing an increase of over ten billion dollars. It provides two billion dollars in new Make Education Great Again grants, a historic investment to improve numeracy and literacy, and remediate our decades-long academic proficiency crisis. And for our students with disabilities and their families, the Trump administration requests sixteen billion dollars for IDEA programs, which is an increase of more than half a billion dollars. We've been clear. Shifting authority back to the States will not come at the expense of essential federal support and programs, much of which predate the department itself. When the Trump administration makes promises, we keep them. And with your partnership, we will unleash momentous opportunity for every child to realize their God-given potential. Thank you and I I look forward to your questions.

Madam Secretary, thank you for your testimony. Under Committee Rule nine, I will now question Secretary McMahon under the five-minute rule. I'll recognize myself for five minutes. of questioning. Uh, Secretary McMahon, the working families tax cuts is a historic win for education. The administration is well underway with implementation and I want t- you to share a little about how that's going. The law made sweeping changes, eliminating grad plus loan uh uh programs, capping parent plus loans, and creating new simplified repayment assistance plan. Um, can you tell us more about how these loan limits aimed to lower the cost of higher education throughout the country.

Well, thank you very much, uh, Chairman, uh, Wahlberg, for that question. It's, um, it's something that I'm really very pleased that we're going to be able to put, uh, more programs into effect to bring down the cost of higher education. That is a primary goal of of ours. Uh, college costs are just exorbitant. students are burdened with debt. We have one point seven trillion dollars in debt, forty-three million students. Only about twenty-five percent of them are uh, you know, are repaying their loans. So we - we really have to do something to bring down the cost of college. And you mentioned getting rid of the Grad Plus loans. Up until that time, a student could go to a university, and whatever that university said was the cost of the graduate program, that's how much you could borrow.

Mm-hmm.

Just - it was just that simple. So what we have done is remove Grad Plus from that, and now we've put in caps on other programs for graduate students and undergraduate students to make sure that we can help reduce uh the cost and the burden of college and at the same time making uh repayment programs a lot more simple. Uh you know we're going to have eventually only two tracks for repaying outstanding loans once that's a standard repayment the other is RAP which is based more on income, but until that time, those programs that are available at the moment for students to enter into repayments they can still go into those payments up until twenty twenty eight. We hope to encourage them to go already into RAP or a standard program because then it becomes more simple for them and they don't have to change horses in the, middle of the ride if you will. So I think all of these uh programs that we're putting into place or simplifying it And um, students will have an opportunity to have a better understanding of what their responsibility is and uh, and - and hopefully it's just a more direct - a more direct way for payments.

Thank you. Uh, I applaud yours and the President's efforts in returning education to the states, literally. Um, you've made great progress showing Congress how that can work, um, in particular through the workforce development partnership between your agency and the Department of Labor. Uh, over one billion in funding has been successfully drawn down by states under programs included in that partnership. What reforms, Madam Secretary, does this partnership make possible, and how is this partnership providing a model for the other partnerships you're developing?

Well, thanks very much, it was, this is kind of our, it, this was our first uh inter-agency agreement that we signed with the Department of Labor un- under the authority of the Economy Act. And and the goal here is to uh co-administer these programs with other agencies. The inter-agency agreement are programs that have been utilized through agencies for many many years uh in Congress kind of sub-contracting for uh f for those services or co-administering them with the Department of Labor. One of the one of the biggest um I think results that we've had in this program is this combination of WIOA which had been handled by the Department of Education and Perkins grants, which had been at labor, and now we've made possible that um borrowers can or students can come into this program on a combined um uh application for WIOA and Perkins, and we've had now about twenty-one states uh submit uh those combined plans. That's a really big efficient use so far of what we've seen uh

Hmm.

and working, you know, with the Department of Labor.

OK, thank you. Well, in less than thirty-five seconds, let me ask you this question. Can you tell us somewhat about the OCR caseload you inherited and how your enforcement priorities will better serve students?

Well, we are really moving forward, uh, at this particular junction to address our caseload. We we inherited, uh, from the Biden administration about nineteen thousand backlog, and when we had left, uh, After the first administration with President Trump there was about forty five hundred so that grew to nineteen thousand uh when we came over and and took over. Uh we brought in Assistant Secretary uh Kim Rishi who was uh responsible during the first Trump term uh at bringing down that caseload uh and being the head of OCR and she is now with us as the Assistant Secretary she's been in a few months took a while for her to get

Well, we wish you good success on that. My time has expired and now I recognize the gentleman from Connecticut, Mister Courtney.

Thank you, uh, Mister Chairman. Um, Secretary McMahon, President Trump, uh, said a couple of days ago that he was not thinking about America's Americans' financial situations not even quote " a little bit." You and your department distem- d- demonstrated the same mind-set when you finalized H. R. one's new student loan caps that will drive up borrowing costs for advanced degree nursing students nurse anesthesists midwives and nurse practitioners that goes into effect July first. As you know, the rule excluded nursing from the department's professional degree definition which aside from being one of the most insulting tone messages to five million nurses uh imaginable across the country, it will in fact raise education costs for critical critically needed nurses. Two hundred and fifty thousand nurses who understand their financial situation very well signed a petition to you organized by the American Nurses Association, America's largest professional nurses organization, vehemently protesting this rule during the comment period which of course the department unfortunately brushed aside. As the president of ANA stated, DOE's reasoning distorts how nursing education, licensure, and practice work, and in doing so sends an alarming message to nurses and to the public. And again, they understand that with a cap, and where nursing programs exceed their tuition exceeds those caps, they are gonna be pushed into the private lending market. That's why private lenders supported HR one, because they saw it as an opportunity for uh increasing their their uh book of business. So my first question to you is to confirm that this rule defining professions and capping federal loan availability is actually implementing H R one, the one big beautiful bill. Is that correct? Uh yes and you know we did that we did that with careful uh careful consideration. Thank you. So my next question my my next question madam my next question madam speaker is a again you served on the board of trustees at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield Connecticut, a fine institution with a great advanced uh nursing program for uh an advanced uh uh nurse uh program, the tuition uh at that school is uh actually eighty thousand dollars for a three year program. So again, that, just the tuition for that program exceeds the caps that you put into place with this H R one rule. So for that, for those um students, they are really gonna have no opportunity unless they come from families of great wealth. except to go out and try and find loans in the private market where interest rates are higher and the underwriting uh uh process is gonna disqualify some people. We have a nursing shortage in this country and as A and A pointed out, this rule is actually gonna undermine and and and um damage the ability of this country to actually educate and and bring online nurses that again in in the numbers of hundreds of thousands are open and and needed at this critical time. So based on your experience, which again is right local for you, where the tuition of the university that you sat on the board of trustees exceeds the lending caps that you put into place, what do you say to those nurses who asked for your consideration during the comment period that you brushed aside?

Well, first of all, uh, and and thank you for bringing that up so we can address it, uh, I do think that nurses are incredibly respected professions

Well your rule certainly doesn't

and uh

show that.

well um let me just address this issue you know we looked very very carefully at the entire nursing profession ninety five percent of the nurses that are in programs do not uh exceed these caps seventy eight percent of the nurses that are moving for graduate programs do not exceed or come up to these caps We were very carefully looking at the cost of these programs across the country. There are outliers. There are programs which they cost more, but there you can get your degrees in many universities around the country that don't come close to charging these amounts. And our goal, you you I have to uh disagree with your framing of this whole situation because our goal is to bring down the cost of higher education. And since we've put in these caps, just this week, uh University of California in Irvine

That that's great so the but this week also inflation went up three point eight percent

so the university

across the country your own data in terms of analyzing this rule making process actually showed that for nurse anesthesists at least twenty eight percent of them who are in education right now uh have uh costs that exceed the caps nurse practitioners twenty three percent and family uh practice nurses by twenty two point six percent. This is from your own department. So you didn't even like an- you know, listen to your own people and staff in terms of what cohort of nurses are gonna be excluded because of these caps and who are gonna have higher borrowing costs, if they wanna complete their degrees.

Or

Yield back, Mister Chair.

or

Gentleman's time has expired. And um we hope those answers can be given later on. Now I recognize the gentleman from South Carolina, Mister Wilson.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and uh Madam Secretary, thank you so much for your success. Uh indeed, uh the American people are just so grateful for your efforts to close down the Department of Education. Uh this should be a local issue uh for local elected school boards. The uh the oppo- the opposition often say you're cutting a essential program, but that's not true. What you're actually doing is cutting red tape in bureaucracy so that educators can spend more time educating students. Could you please review with us how the dismantling the Department of Education will empower state and local leaders to better serve students and indeed, my view is schools should be run by local elected school boards, not Washington bureaucrats. And additionally, I was grateful to praise your deserved success of deregulation Monday in the congressional record which I provided a copy. Uh, so indeed, uh, we really appreciate your success, so Uh, h- how do we address the, um, accusations of, uh, actually eliminating programs?

Well, thank thank you very much, um, Congressman. You know, I have been, uh, touring now. I've been to about thirty-six states. And, um, I really wanted to get close to the situation and look at schools. So I visited all kinds. I visited, you know, elementary, middle schools, micro schools, uh I've talked to principals and teachers and parents and all of them are incredibly happy that the president is really looking at moving education power back to parents because parents and teachers that are closest to the child understand what the educational needs are you know for their children. So I am I'm really pleased at at the programs that that we've been able to uh to put into place already you know and K through twelve education, one of the things that we're looking at so much is why why can't our children read? Why can't they do math? So let's make sure that we are looking at states that have been successful, uh in in their programs returning reading to the science of reading. The miracle of Mississippi is a great example. Uh Louisiana has adopted this program, Florida, Iowa, uh Texas, others and they're showing the results of this. And now we want to make sure uh that the funds that are going into these states through our through this budget program of our uh mega-grant program, we are reserving fifty percent of the monies that are going to states. We're asking states to reserve fifty percent of that money, twenty-five percent devoted to literacy, twenty-five percent devoted to numeracy, so that we can get our children to read. The most important thing we can do for our children is to make sure they can read and do math. We have failed them. When you have only thirty percent, or even a little less, of eighth graders and fourth graders that can read at proficient level, we are failing our students and we need to change that. So our states are really on board to bri- to be able to have more money block granted to them so that governors and superintendents can spend that money, where in their states they need to spend it most. The most innovation that we have had in programs across the country so far in these successes I noted were innovations at the state level they're not being directed from the bureaucracy in Washington DC so let's make sure we are supporting those efforts by giving the money to the states and letting them be able to spend the money where they know it needs to be spent.

Well in South Carolina we really appreciate your visit. Uh in fact you were uh with a champion of education our superintendent of education, Ellen Weaver, uh and I I'm also grateful that you were there with Congresswoman Sherry Biggs, and so uh what a team you all made uh promoting uh quality education. With that in mind too, there's been growth in school choice o- over the past year with uh couple of years, with uh one point five million students now enrolled in school choice programs. I know the benefit of that, my wife was a teacher at an alternative school, giving young uh challenged young people an- another chance. Uh, what do you see as the future for school choice?

Well, so many states now, and this is a state issue. They have adopted school choice programs in their states, but under the Working Families Tax Cut bill, one of the things that the president did provide was the first time of a national school choice program, which actually is private money coming into the school, coming into states, and governors can approve what are known as uh scholarship granting organizations, private money gets donated into those organizations and uh the donor can deduct up to um seventeen hundred dollars on their federal tax form. Parents then dis- can then go to these SGOs and apply for scholarships, or they can apply for after school tutoring, or uh if they have a child with disabilities for extra services. So this is a a really big part of uh of the working families tax cuts bill.

Well, we so appreciate your success on behalf of the families and educators of our country. I yield back.

Thank you.

Gentleman's time has expired and I recognize the gentlelady from Oregon, Miss Bonamici.

Thank you, Secretary McMahon. You started your testimony today by talking about a clear mandate. But the majority of people in this country do not support dismantling the Department of Education and frankly many are pr- are pretty worried about what's happening. And since you've been secretary the department has entered into ten called inter-agency agreements. I uh call them bureaucracy expansion agreements, uh that claim to transfer the administration of critical education programs, programs that Congress gave to the Department of Education to other federal agencies. And I've previously asked you what authority you rely on for these agreements, and you have cited the Economy Act of nineteen thirty-three. So Secretary McMahon, is it still your position that the Economy Act of nineteen thirty-three gives you the authority to enter into these agreements. And that's just a yes or no question, please.

Yes.

Uh, while the Economy Act allows an agency to perform services for another agency, the Department of Justice and the Comptroller General have established that the Economy Act does not authorize the transfer of statutory functions. They've been vested in a particular agency by Congress, and you've claimed that other agencies are co-administering or co-managing these programs but the fact is that several if not all of these bureaucracy expansion agreements are illegal or unconstitutional. And if your legal counsel is telling you that the Economy Act authorizes you to do these transfers without Congress you should hire better lawyers. Uh, Madam Secretary, it's my understanding that the next bureaucracy expansion agreement will likely transfer the administration of programs in the Office of Special Education in Rehabilitative Services including services under IDEA. When we last spoke you were determining which of these programs should be tr- where these programs should be transferred, to the Department of Labor or to the Par- Department of Health and Human Services. So Secretary McMahon, does the Department of Education plan to transfer the administration of IDEA to another agency yes or no and if yes, to which agency?

We have not yet made a determination of where uh IDEA services would go.

Do you plan to transfer the services to another agency,

Uh, we're see-

yes or no?

Well, i- Well, eventually, Congresswoman, you you do know that uh that the w

Just yes or just yes or no. I have other questions.

No, it's not a yes or no answer. I'm sorry. We we will be looking to transfer and at first co-administering these programs with other agencies under our proof of concert.

Okay, that that was your answer. So, Ma- Madam Secretary, I want you to know I heard from a foster mom of a three year old girl with disabilities. She's pretty outraged. You've fired employees in the office of special ed uh special education. And she said, " We love our special need kids. They teach us more about life than we could ever teach them." So please fight for families with these kids and assure us that our country cares. So I implore you to show this mom and parents across the country that you do care by keeping IDEA at one agency the Department of Education. So also, Madam Secretary, I want to follow up on uh Representative Courtney's questions. Uh you got more than eighty thousand public comments uh and bipartisan pushback when uh but you still have decided to restrict the definition of what counts as a professional degree. And Representative Courtney covered nurses, but there's also social workers, teachers, physical and occupational therapists, and work in a lot of other areas. They might n- they might need to give up on their dreams. You suggested they can just move to a different place and go to a cheaper place, but I tell you, a student at Pacific University who's studying to get her licensure in special education said, the affordability crisis that aspiring educators face bars many from entering the uh profession. So you're the secretary of ed of the department of education, and you're claiming that teaching is not a professional degree? Do you consider education uh uh educators and teachers unprofessional? Yes or no?

Of course not.

Good. Well, should aspiring teachers be able to access affordable loans?

I think teachers and and all of those who are getting degrees should be able to get an affordable loan and that is why we wanna bring down the cost of education. When we do these Well,

Well, Madam Madam Secretary, the the private Yeah, this

let me if I may, it because this is important.

You've answered my question, though.

Well, no, no, I haven't been allowed to answer the question. We already have seen two universities that have reduced their graduate programs because they said responding to these caps they had

You you already said, Madam Secretary, I have another question,

to reduce their fees because they want to provide these programs.

but I I'm gonna reclaim my time and note that this administration is spending between one and two billion dollars on award and billion dollars on tax cuts that could go to helping students. Uh, Madam Secretary, do you know what Michael Eisner the CEO of Disney, and Andrea Jung, uh the former CEO of Avon products, and Indra Noojee, the former CEO of PepsiCo, and Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx. Do you know what they all have in common? I guess not.

Well, they're successful business people.

They're successful business people. You know what they studied in college? Theater. They were theater majors, but you recently said a degree should set up graduates for success and not trap them in lifelong debt. And three of the programs you used as examples of what not to study are theater and film. So, through studying theater, these successful business people learned confidence, communication, creativity, collaboration, all skills that are helping them and are beneficial in any career. So I implore you to understand that education is not just job training. And we are, when you are suggesting to people that they should not study certain fields, that is definitely the federal government trying to manage people's decisions about their future. And, Mister Chairman, as I yield back, I would like to submit for the record an article titled, Nine Ways a Theatre Degree Trumps a Business Degree. And I yield back.

Without objection, it'll be submitted. I now uh recognize the gentlelady, uh the uh Chairman Emeritus of this committee, Mrs. Fox.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman, and thank you uh very much uh, Secretary, for being here with us today. I'm very pleased President Trump appointed you to be secretary and to give you the tough task of dismantling the Department of Education and turn the responsibility for education back to local and state level. Um, as you know, Secretary, I fought for greater accountability in federal programs my entire career. I was especially angered by the Biden-Harris administration's unwillingness to ensure that taxpayer dollars were spent wisely. Democrats gave away tens of billions of dollars during COVID with no accountability. prioritize DEI nonsense while student achievement cratered. Can you please discuss the department's work to ensure greater accountability in the use of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars?

Well, I think um you know, one of the first things Congresswoman, it's a pleasure to see you this morning. Uh, one of the first things that we wanted to make sure that that we did, and one of the things I am most proud of, that we have been able to accomplish since I took office was the total revamp of the FAFSA form and putting that program into place. It was a mess when we left. It uh wasn't even launched on time under the Biden administration. Congress actually did order uh us to make sure it was launched and we absolutely revamped it. It launched early. Uh it takes now about thirty-five minutes to complete the FAFSA form as opposed to two or three days. And uh we we have also now put in um a a a special uh program in there so that a student or a parent who is help who is applying for these loans can see how much uh a program is going to cost and what the wha- what the income is for those program when you graduate so you can take a look at it and think about whether or not this is going to be something that you want to take on this kind of debt for do you wanna look at another college or university How is it? And this is something that has not been available, you know, to parents before. And so I think this is an incredible improvement in the FAFSA system. It uh not only launched on time, it launched early, and I was pleased to be at some of the beta tests for it to to listen to parents about how easy it was to navigate.

Thank you. I was going to ask about your efforts uh in the FSA and getting it back on a firm footing. But I think the chairman has lauded your efforts there and covered that issue. Madam Secretary, I again I'm grateful to you for working with members of Congress during your tenure. I'd like for that to continue, and I'd like to simply explore a commitment to continue working constructively on this proposed rule for undergraduate certificates, as it relates to gainful employment. You and I have spoken about this. and I've spoken with your staff. As you know, people joke that accountability is my middle name. I'm glad accountability for higher education was enshrined in our reforms in H R one, after having pursued it for eight years as as a leader on this committee. Now that accountability is here, I believe that this accountability needs to be equitable and proportional. In particular, regulations surrounding and other similar undergraduate certificate programs needs to be contextualized and properly targeted and fair. Many of the graduates of these programs work part-time, are paid in uncertain tipping structures, and live in low-cost of living rural areas. May I please have your commitment to continue to work constructively with many of us to ensure these regulations deliver unfair accountability without unduly harming these people who want to enter these careers.