Examining the FY 2027 NASA Budget Request

Yep. Well, good morning everyone, and good morning to you, Secretary McMahon. Thank you for being here today to discuss the President's budget for twenty twenty seven, uh, the request and your priorities for the Department of Education. I'm pleased to be joined this morning as always by my friend and ranking member, Senator Baldwin. It is our fourth year atop the subcommittee together, and uh I think later on we will be um joined by our full committee chairs, um, Senator Collins and the Vice Chair, Senator Murray. Uh, I know we're all eager to build upon the successful bipartisan work that we completed this last fiscal year and would love to see it continue through the year. Secretary McMahon, you're entering your second year at the helm of the Department of Education. Much like the last time we were all gathered in this room, we find ourselves at a crossroads. Do we stay the course with our education system as it is? hoping that more money and federal in- uh intervention will solve our problems? Or do we, as you have suggested, ask the difficult questions and consider innovative solutions that can actually turn the tide? Madam Secretary, I think we both believe that all Americans from our earliest learners to our post-secondary students should have the opportunity to access a uh to access a high quality education and it is our responsibility to make that possible. But our nation's students are struggling. We know from last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress that students are still scoring below pre-pandemic levels on all tested grades and subjects. Thirty-five percent, a full one-third of our nation's eighth graders are not reading at the NAEP basic level. This is a greater percentage percentage than ever before. We must remain focused on improving outcomes for students. That means ensuring students can read at grade level, are prepared for colleges and career, and have opportunities to succeed in a rapidly changing environment. It's a time for the United States to stand on the global stage as a leader in education, and reverse the troubling trends that we have seen for far too long. So where do we begin? Your leadership has shown that perhaps we need to start by turning to those who know our students best. Our local schools, our local teachers, and their parents, of the students. Federal education spending should be tailored to support states and policies that are responsive to the needs of each student. I'm pleased to see that your budget supports formula grant programs like Title I and IDEA that bring crucial investments to each of our states. These programs provide the much needed flexibility for our local communities to meet individual needs for their students. Similarly, I'm pleased to see your budget maintain your support for Charter Schools program. West Virginia is fairly new to offering charter schools, yet we are already seeing exciting results in the expanded school choice opportunities for our public school students. I know that the department's continuing investment in the charter school program will benefit many more students across the nation, much like we have seen in my state. I would also like to touch on post-secondary education. I'll note that before I began my professional career uh bef- I began my professional career as a college counselor and advisor. And in this role I saw firsthand how education provides students with life-changing opportunities.

Yes.

So I was glad to see that your budget requests funding to address the Pell shortage, and to maintain the Pell Grant Maximum Award. Pell is critical to help provide financial access to post-secondary education for our students in West Virginia, and across the nation who need it the most. I'm also encouraged by the steps the department has taken to return student loan borrowers to repayment. and remind them of the responsibility that they take on when taking out a loan. However, after after years of bar- of borrowers not being required to pay their loans, by the prior administration, there is more work that needs to be done. Currently, more than one out of four student loan borrowers are delinquent or in default. I look forward to work to the work your department will do to clearly and efficiently correct the unprecedented confusion that our st- uh, student loan borrowers have faced for years, and importantly, put borrowers back on a thoughtful track to repayment. As we move through the fiscal year twenty twenty-seven appropriations process, I look forward to continued partnership with your department to find a responsible balance between our limited taxpayer resources and supporting the best opportunities for a high-quality education. I anticipate the road ahead will be challenging, as it always has been, but we must forge ahead together to deliver our students who are the future of our great nation. Thank you again for being here and I look forward to your testimony and now I'll turn to uh our rank my ranking member, Senator Baldwin for opening statement.

Um, good morning and thank you, Chair Capito. Uh, Secretary McMahon, thank you as well for being here today. Look, it's been deeply disheartening to see the focus of this administration when it comes to education issues facing our students and our families. Experts have been clear that the steady improvement in student achievement stopped roughly a decade ago, and it has it been in decline since. This has been hardest on precisely the students federal law is intended to help. Secretary McMain, instead of working collaboratively towards solutions to help our students and families, you've undertaken a politically-motivated campaign to undermine the work of the Department of Education. This has been to the detriment of our students and if allowed to continue, will have consequences long into the future. This includes the termination of two billion dollars in grants in the middle of last school year, including grants to expand school-based mental health and special education staff in the state of Wisconsin, my home state. It includes illegally withholding more than seven billion dollars in formula grant funds which states were forced to sue in order to access. It includes the abrupt end of eight hundred million dollars in investments in education, research and data that support the work of our states and schools. It includes the elimination of funding to address teacher shortages, international education, and eliminating funding for minority student uh s- minority serving uh institutions. It also includes the continued focus on illegally dismantling the entire Department of Education. None of this is about returning education to the states. The things you claim to have returned through waivers and flexibility, federal law already allowed. At the same time, you are asserting an unprecedented level of control over state and local education decisions. You are using the full power of the federal government to require states, school districts and institutions of higher education to bend to the will of the Trump administration or face a loss of federal funding. What the department is doing is transferring the vast majority of its programs to other federal departments, agencies with little experience or or capacity to administer them. This includes moving programs that support elementary schools to the Department of Labor. This isn't reducing du- bureaucracy, it's creating more of it, another layer of it. Where states previously primarily dealt with the Department of Education, they will now have to deal with multiple federal agencies. The the department claimed without evidence, uh, success in transferring career and technical education education and adult education programs to the Department of Labor. That transfer has not gone smoothly, a- a- and it has, in fact, cost taxpayers even more. The programs your department next plans to move are orders of magnitude larger and more complex including programs like Title I, Impact Aid, and TRIO. You are moving those programs at an unknown cost to the Department of Labor onto a grant system administered by yet another agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, a grant system that has experienced significant technical difficulties, um, and issues last year that created delays for programs like Head Start and community health centers a system the Department of Health and Human Services has described itself as antiquated. This is a waste of taxpayer resources that creates additional complexity and significant risks for our states and schools, particularly rural schools. It also fundamentally misses the point about the role of the Department of Education, which is in large part about supporting states and schools in ensuring all students have access to a high quality public education. The recent decline in student test scores is very concerning. But it follows steady progress over decades and does not provide evidence that we should eliminate the Department of Education. To the contrary, the Department of Education has helped some states buck those recent trends. It has helped states and school districts adopt evidence-based approaches through funding research and technical assistance, to improve student outcomes. Instead of building on this work, the department is taking away important support while making everything more complicated. And that is not what our states, schools, families and students need. Now we have before us a budget that proposes massive cuts to public education. This budget would raise the cost for families, state and local taxpayers would have to make up for the six billion dollar cut to programs supporting fifty million K through twelve students served in our nation's public schools, and I will not support a proposal to cut funding to Wisconsin for public elementary and secondary education. Your budget request would also make higher education more expensive and harder to access for working families. While increased funding for the Pell Grant program is important, that just maintains current benefits. At the same time, the budget eliminates nearly every other program to help students pursue and afford higher education. Chair Capito, I appreciate the work we were able to do together on last year's budget, with the support of Chair Collins and Vice Chair Murray. I'm committed to working with any member who is serious about developing a fiscal year twenty twenty-seven appropriations bill that supports our schools and funds the Department of Education so it can do what the law requires for our students and families. Thank you.

Thank you, uh, Senator Baldwin, and now, uh, we'll turn to our witness. Our witness today is Linda McMahon, who is the secretary of the Department of Education. Uh, welcome, uh, Madam Secretary, and, uh, we look forward to your opening statement.

Thank you and, uh, good morning, Chair Capito, Ranking Member Baldwin, distinguished members of this subcommittee. Thank you so much for having me today. Americans re-elected President Trump with a clear mandate to sunset a forty-six year old, three trillion dollar failed educational 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, For decades, many promised, but none have delivered. In the past year, I've traveled to over thirty states, seeing firsthand the successes and challenges our education systems face 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 families. We've cut unproductive program funding and redirected those resources to revitalize literacy, invigorate workforce development, and support our most vulnerable students. We've 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 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're 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 - for the forty-three million Americans holding an astounding one point seven trillion dollars in federal student loan debt.

OK.

Our simplified free application for federal student aid, or the 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 one billion dollars in federal student aid fraud so far. We're also hard at work implementing the Work in Families Tax Cuts Act, which simplifies federal student loan repayment, launches a new workplace workforce Pelt 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 I, Title I A grants to local education agencies programs 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 programs for support, 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 look forward to taking your questions.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh, Madam Secretary, and I want to turn to the uh, Chair of the full committee, Senator Collins. We're happy to have her here uh always and uh, she will lead off with the questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair Capito. Welcome, Madam Secretary. Madam Secretary, the administration's is proposing to consolidate important K through twelve education programs into one big block grant, the Make Education Great Again grant. Many of these programs are extremely important to our students, including the Rural Education Achievement program, that i authored more than two decades ago to help rural school districts overcome the unique challenges that they face for one small rural schools don't have grant writers to apply uh for grants and they lack those resources reap help schools by giving them additional funding and flexibility Eliminating REAP as a separate program puts schools in rural states at a real disadvantage. From my perspective, consolidating eighteen programs funded previously at six point five billion dollars into one grant program, funded at only two billion dollars, will undermine the goals of helping our K through twelve schools. Protecting rural schools and rural communities has always been one of my top priorities. So it's critical that we evaluate the impact that the administration's proposal would have on rural schools. How would providing much less funding going from six point five billion to two billion and consolidating all of these programs help rural schools.

Thank you, Senator, very much for your question, and I know your passion for rural schools is as much throughout Maine. One of the points that you made about a lot of rural schools don't have grant writers and can't bring in those resources that other states might have or other cities might have is part of the program of this consolidation because there are a lot of states who never participated in any of the grant funding. Under this proposal with consolidation all states will participate in a formulaic distribution of this consolidated grant. While I acknowledge it is not as much money coming into a lot of the different programs our assessment of many of these programs have been they s- they have lost their efficacy, and they're really not returning uh the p- the - they're giving the returns uh that we had hoped to see for our rural schools. So I really believe that this - in this consolidation effort, we have the opportunity for many more schools to take advantage of dollars and to be spent in the areas where they need them. Governors, local school boards, uh, superintendents of these states can take a look at these dollars that are coming in. If they need to be spent more in rural areas, they can direct that funding to rural areas. If they have adequate, um, school funds in their city or less rural areas, then they'll have the opportunity to take that money and put it where they need it. So the goal is to provide more dollars to be spent where governors and state superintendents and even parents participating in local school boards see the need for these dollars to be spent.

Well, I hope we can work further on this. The Rural Education Achievement Program has been enormously successful, and I'm worried it's gonna be lost in the uh consolidation. Uh, you and I have discussed many times my passion for the TRIO program. which has changed the lives of countless first generation and low income students in Maine and across the country. Three of my own staff members are Trio alums and likely would not have attended college without Trio. So I want to go on record that I oppose the administration's proposal to once again um eliminate a program that enjoys robust and has made such a difference in the lives of children. I do want to ask you about a specific uh part of TRIO. Along with eleven of my colleagues, I've recently sent you a letter that expresses concerns about the recently published applications for the TRIO talent search and educational opportunity centers grant. competitions. The grant structure outlined in the applications reflects a dramatic shift in the mission, and it would redirect funds from the core purpose of the talent search and EO EOC programs. Now, I'm a very strong supporter of apprenticeship programs and other workforce training programs, but that's not what TRIO's designed for higher education. Ultimately, that leads to workforce improvements and opportunities, but it's designed to promote college awareness, preparation, and completion for low-income and first-generation students. So in my judgment, the partnership that the Department of Education has entered into with the Department of Labor negatively affects these competitions, and current grantees in my state, like the University of Maine and the University of Maine at Presque Isle, are going to be hurt by the change in focus. Why alter congressional intent for the education opportunity centers and the talent search grant competitions. And my second related question is were the new criteria written by the Department of Labor staff rather than the Department of Education?

Well, in very limited time I have left,

Sorry about that.

uh, the Department of Labor did not write this criteria. We have done, and - and I understand your passion for TRIO, and it - and we have had many talks about this. I think what we are looking at at the Department of Education is looking at TRIO differently, giving it some opportunity to be reformed, because under TRIO's own metrics, it has not achieved its own goals. And as we look at it across the country, we looked at, OK, how can TRIO then be reformed if in fact we could provide a different kind of opportunity for higher education? Would it necessarily have to be a college degree? Or could there be um, students who would want to proceed after, uh, high school into apprenticeship programs or a skilled workforce. So this latest is kind of if, if you will, experiment with TRIO to look at it to see if it has different results. I think in this bidding process it was - it was worth taking an opportunity of reform to show that there might be alternatives to higher education other than college, given that we do have a lack of our

When, well, my time has expired, so we'll continue this discussion. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Senator Baldwin.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mm-hmm.

Secretary McMahon, um, it's a central tenet of yours that you are, quote, returning education to the states. So I would say what's, ask what specifically have you returned to Wisconsin through your efforts to dismantle the Department of Education?

Well, Senator, I've, um, I've been touring states all around the country. I've been now to, I think, about thirty-four states. I have looked at microschools, middle schools, high schools, private schools, public schools, religious schools. I visited, um, institutions of higher education.

And so

And what we are trying to do is to really evaluate what the need is for our education across the country, and to provide my legacy, hopefully, is going to be toolkits for different universities.

Secretary, you've not returned anything t- to the states and local school districts that they didn't already have. They have been able to always seek waivers under federal law. They have always had primary authority over education decisions, like hiring teachers and choosing curriculum. And they have always had the flexibility noted in your reminders. So how does requiring states and school districts to interact now with multiple federal agencies, the Department of Labor, uh indirectly the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education, instead of just one agency, how does any of that do anything to return education to the states?

Well first of all let's look at the first uh inter-agency agreement that we've signed with the Department of Labor. We've um we are co-administering uh that uh program with the Department of Labor. And so now the uh management of WIOA and Perkins grants, which typically would be two applications from the state, you can go to one place now, and it is the same people from the Department of Education that are at the Department of Labor.

And I - I wanna just emphasize that.

So if I may just say this is important, this is important if I may, because it is not going to various and sundry different agencies, it's dealing with the same people that you've known uh at the Department of Education that are located somewhere else.

So you are sending -

And there's the Department of Education is a pass-through

Let - let me just -

for funding which you will continue to appropriate,

Look.

then that will be absolutely registered.

I'm gonna cut you off there. Y- you are sending Department of Education employees to work at other agencies to administer the same programs from different buildings. At best, this will prove nothing about what the Department of Education does. It's making everything more complicated for states and local school districts in the meantime. Secretary, you also abruptly terminated funding for schools in Wisconsin and other states during the middle of last uh school year including funding for teacher training and student mental health programs and you delayed funding for things like Mm-hmm. after-school programs just weeks before the start of the school year. There is simply nothing about this that is quote " returning education to the states". Secretary McMahon, the Department of Labor provides employment and job training services enforces our federal labor laws and protects retirement and health care benefits of workers. Why are you sending programs that support elementary schools and elementary school students to the Department of Labor?

I certainly do think, um, that as we look at how education should be um viewed in our country. Clearly there are many aspects of education. Uh, it's enrichment of minds, it's it's development of thought, but it is also to provide an opportunity for children once they have finished their education, to enter into the workforce and have an opportunity

We're talking about elementary K through twelve. And the grants that you're transferring to Department of Labor are much larger and much more complex than what the Department of Labor currently administers. Were you aware that the Department of Labor's Office of Inspector General has consistently found the Department of Labor is challenged in effectively managing its grant portfolio?

Well, here's what I think. That we definitely

Were you aware of that?

Uh, yes.

OK.

So, I believe that there are opportunities in every agency to improve their grant programs.

So you'll transfer Education Department grant programs to a department that is challenged in its current uh uh administration of grants.

You know, when uh, Senator, in any time that you were looking to make, let's call it, if you were looking at the business world, a merger. When you bring two peop- two factions together, do you believe in the end are gonna be better serving the population that you are looking to serve? There's some hiccups along the way at the beginning, but in the end, this is a program that I believe will help our students as they go from K through twelve into higher education, be prepared for the workforce of today and the demands of the workforce of tomorrow.

And I would note in closing of our time

And that is why I think labor is an appropriate place to code-minister these programs.

I would note in the closing of our time that not only are we talking about, uh, deficiencies in the Department of Labor's, uh, management of its grant portfolio, but the Department of Labor contracts with the Department of Health and Human Services to use their grants management system. And there were technical issues with one of those systems last year which resulted in significant delays of Head Start and other funding.

Well, I can - I can tell you that, um, our programs have gone out - our grant programs have gone out on time from labor. We have, uh, processed requests from over fifty-six states, uh, over I think it's thirty million dollars at this particular - I think it's thirty billion dollars at this particular point - we've gotten those grants out on time, merging with the two systems. And actually the Department of Labor has a more advanced system of grant uh dissemination than does the Department of Education.

The timeliness of Department of Education grants is much in dispute, Madam Secretary.

Well, we - we can stand to agree to disagree on that point. Thank you.

Uh, I'm gonna stay on that, uh, on the, uh, Department of Labor and, uh, the career and technical education, uh, aspect, because I think, uh, I - I'd like to hear from you. You - you - you mentioned how many states, uh, have been, uh, seeking you know gotten their money through the department of labor and it it's what are the metrics that you're using as as as to determine whether this is a successful merger is it how many students are more self-aware when they come out of school do they wanna go into apprenticeship do they wanna go into a skilled a skill do they wanna go to higher ed because i think there's obviously uh we have so many workforce programs throughout the whole government in all different aspects of it But I do think consolidating these and matching it with education is a natural, is a natural fit. So I'm gonna assume of, you said fifty-six state, or fifty-six entities that you'd, you'd, you'd looked at, you said that in your last answer, I think. Oh, obviously not fifty-six states, cuz we only have fifty, but um, so Are you getting complaints about this from the states? Interfering con- sin territories. I'm asking what are your metrics that you're gonna use to see if this success, and are you getting complaints from the states that this is not working for them? Cuz I'm not hearing that. from my state.

We we haven't gotten complaints. Um, you know, I think there were concerns at first, were the grants gonna go out on time, were there gonna be issues, and in merging, you know, two systems and in having uh, you know, co-administering this program, these programs at labor, clearly, you know, there were some hiccups to begin with, which I think would be natural to work out. But we have worked them out. So I'm really pleased that with in terms of the um, Waiola programs and the Perkins grants, Those mergers have gone incredibly well, getting those grants out the door on time, uh, and states have not issued any kind of complaints. And so I'm really satisfied now with how this is working. As we move, uh, well

What were your metric, not to interrupt you, but I, the second part of my question was what what kind of metrics are you all

Just

looking at in the research to see whether this is successful?

The metrics, were were they going out on time, getting to where they needed to go without complaints, just as it would have been at the Department of Education.

Alright, let me ask you about student loan repayment. Obviously, um, a lot of uh s- student loan borrowers were put into the save program, which was deemed illegal by a federal appeals court, uh and uh lots of legal disputes. So, I mean, total confusion uh from student borrowers as to uh do they owe, do they have to pay, what so I you know, uh many borrowers are currently enrolled in a forbearance plan but they're getting they're gonna get instructed that they need to get into a legal uh repayment plan. How is that going? Uh, is it eliminating the confusion and uh I I'm I'm wondering uh that that's a big thing to tackle but it what is it trillion dollars or something uh that is uh in uh owed on this plan?

It it is a huge um portfolio, one point seven trillion dollars in outstanding debt and only about forty percent of those payers are are now trying any kind of repayment at all. And - and who can blame them? Over the last administration trying to put into place the Save Act, talking about not having to repay loans, there were seven or eight different kinds of loan repayment programs, uh, you know, income-based, uh, base deferments, et cetera. So what happened under, uh, you know, the - the Families Tax Cuts Act and the, um, Working Families Tax Cuts Act is the consolidation now of loans, so that there would be two repayment plans put in place. So what we're trying to do now is to move those who had entered into the save program, which was declared unconstitutional, not be allowed, to move them into other repayment programs. Under the new bill there will be two, the RAP program and standard repayment. However, till that is in effect in twenty twenty eight, someone could move out of the current system they're in into a different repayment plan, which is, I think, confusing. I'd rather see them move into the RAP, RAP, uh, plan of repayment which gives more, uh, which gives better terms than some of the current repayment plans. And also, uh, if you're making your plan- your payments on time, you can get credit towards principal. The government will even match some of those payments toward principal. It's going to be, I believe, a much better system, uh, for repayment when, if we can move them into it. Is it confusing for a minute? Of course it would have to be. When you have millions of uh borrowers who were moving into the save program and hoping they weren't gonna have to repay that got stopped during COVID then it didn't get restarted after COVID and uh it is it is quite complicated to sort through but I believe we are making really good progress.

Well, I wish you luck and will give you support on that uh I think it's uh I think everybody is confused and certainly the borrowers and I'm with you I mean if you If you didn't think you had to repay, uh, or if you thought you were gonna get a a year, uh, you know, forbearance, why wouldn't you do that?

And there,

I mean, yeah.

you know, there are people since twenty twenty who've borrowed

Yeah.

money who've made no payments for over six years.

Right. Right. All right. Thank you. Um, Senator Shaheen.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member Baldwin, for holding this hearing today and welcome, Secretary McMahon. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to you last week. Um. I wanna f- start by following up on Senator Collin's questions about the TRIO and the gear up programs as we discussed last week. Now, you said that you have metrics that show that those programs are not successful, but I have metrics that say, according to the eval- evaluators, the Pell Institute and the Institute of College Success and Access, that in evaluating TRIO, that there are higher rates of retention for students in higher education, they have higher rates of graduation, they have upper bound students who earn um a bachelor degree at twice the rate of non-trio first generation students. So I would hope that you would share with this committee the metrics that you have that show that these programs are not successful. Um and I I would just point out anecdotally we heard from one trio alum, Heather, from Berlin, New Hampshire. She writes, " My childhood," my childhood was a gauntlet of domestic violence, alcoholism and poverty. My upward bound summer literally pulled me out of a toxic environment and showed me that a different life was possible. My trio mentors stayed by my side, helping me navigate the applications and fees that would have otherwise been impossible barriers. I went from a kid stealing food to survive to creator of knowledge conducting high level research. Since her trio experiences, Heather has earned two bachelor's degrees, two master's degrees and a PHD. And she finishes her story with this statement, "Trio transforms public investment into long-term economic and civic return. I am living proof and I am forever grateful." Madam Secretary, is it the intent of this administration to eliminate the Trio and gear up programs and other programs that students who are at risk from accessing higher education.

Um, Senator Shaheen, thank you very much, um, for relaying that. And the - and that is a great success story for TRIO program. And I'm sure there are many of those, you know, around the country. However,

As as I pointed out,

if

the evaluation of this program shows that they have been very successful.

Well, the metrics that I get, which are the self- They're the self-reported metrics from TRIO. As we look at their percentage of - of uh - of - of graduation rates, uh et cetera, they are falling short of their own metrics.

Well, again, would you please share those with the committee?

Yeah, I'll be happy to do that.

Thank you.

Um.

Um, so can you answer, is it the intent to get rid of this program?

And - and - As - as I mentioned before, we are spending about two point one million dollars evaluating TRIO and looking to see if it should be revised. And You know, and I'm I am sure that the Appropriations Committee, um, as they did last year, if you, if Congress chooses to, uh, to fund TRIO, then we will work very closely with you to see what reforms we can do to make it better, if in fact it's better. But right now it is costing, it is a high cost, uh, to have TRIO programmed.

Well, it may be a high cost, but this Congress passed the President's one big, beautiful bill. that provided a tax cut for people with an annual income over one million dollars, and it's now costing the taxpayers over one trillion dollars. It's added four point six trillion dollars to the federal deficit. So I think comparing that to the cost of TRIO and gear up programs, which each cost one point two billion annually and provide opportunities for thousands of young people to better themselves, is a much better balance of payments. Um, I - I would like to go on to another question. However, um, one of the topics - You talked about your, um, effort to respond better to address challenges with, um, various programs in the department. And one of the topics that my office gets a lot of calls about is the public service loan forgiveness buy-back program which is administered by the Department of Education. Um, What we hear from applicants is that they have heard from your department, that they will get their applications answered within forty-five days. But my staff tells me that it's often nine months to a year before my constituents get a substantive response. We currently have over seventy constituents waiting just in our office for answers about their applications. Nationally there are over eighty-eight thousand applicants waiting to hear from the department. And that number has grown by four thousand just since February. So, can you talk about, um, how you intend to deal with this backlog and is, um, I understand that part of your plan is to have the Treasury Department take over these responsibilities. And yet the Treasury Department doesn't seem to have the personnel resources and expertise to administer the program. So, how are you expecting to address that?

Well, treasuries really down the road for dealing with this. And we've been looking at this buy-back program, which was established really under under the prior administration with a lot of regulations involved and, uh, it's - it was not - it was not established by law. There is an eighty-eight thousand backlog and it's very complex to verify the employment of all of the people that are writing in. It's tedious to do. We are addressing this backlog and, uh, and want to make sure that we can have a long-term solution to fix it.

I think a long-term solution would be great. I I think this program has been in um however, been around longer than just the previous administration. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Uh, Senator Kennedy.

Madam Madam Secretary, at first I wanna make it clear that uh my my re- remarks do not refer To my good friend, Senator Shaheen. Um, I wanted to start by saying one person's opinion, you you are so cool. Literally and figuratively. They call you names and you just ignore them. I also want to say from the record, I don't think we ought to mislead the American people. This isn't your budget. Uh, this budget was put together by OMB and the White House. Every white house does it, sends us a budget, we take a look at it. Some of it we adopt, most of it we ignore. So all this play acting for the cameras is is uh just just that, play acting. I wanna take you down memory lane. I'm gonna come back to the extraordinary job you've done at the Department of Education, which was, when you took it over, was the poster child. the poster child for for excess federal government, chock full of a bunch of woke race baiters whose job was to get in the way of our teachers and our teachers' age. But I wanna take you down memory lane, cuz you've done this despite all of the obstacles. Do you remember when my fri- my uh colleague Senator Schumer said the qual- the following i'm gonna quote americans don't want a radical out of touch billionaire slashing funding for public schools lynda mcmahon is not qualified to lead america's public education but that's why trump nominated her she's the perfect choice to burn our public education system to the ground end quote remember that i do you remember when uh when congressman mark pocon i i could be mispronouncing his name so i apologize said quote lynda mcmahon should stick to wrestling you remember that

i actually don't remember that one

boy you can only be young once but

been pretty well with that though

you you can only be young once but boy you can always be immature can't you Do you remember when uh the Nation magazine, ver- very democratic magazine, published an article entitled " Lyndon McMahon's only qualification as Education Secretary is a history of spreading hate." And this is what they said. Quote, she is seventy-six years old and wants her legacy to be turning the bigotry that made her so obscenely rich into public policy. She's a simpleton. My god. I want you to spend, I want extra time, Madam Chair, everybody else has gotten it. I I I I have been so impressed with the work that you have done in lifting up elementary and secondary education and getting r- trying to whittle down that giant rogue beast that we call the Department of Education, the work you've done on school choice and returning authority back to the states and local government, and fighting anti-semitism and fighting for women's sports. In in a in a couple of minutes, tell me uh, tell me about your accomplishments. I know you can't do it in two minutes.

Well, thank you very much, and I'm I'm glad I really don't remember a lot of those uh quotes.

Oh, there's more.

But but I think

They hit you with everything but a chair. It's disgusting.

Well Well, I can tell you what I believe are we have really we've accomplished a lot. As I mentioned uh prior to visiting so many states and to see what kinds of education systems many of those states has from classical education from um that we that I saw in Florida and uh and and other states to states that have really accepted uh returning uh, they're reading programs to evidence-based phonics, and we've seen the response to that from many states who are looking now to take those same programs and to numeracy to make sure that their math scores are coming up when you walk into a department and you look across the country, and the president of the United States has told you that he was embarrassed and ashamed by the state of education in our country and not only across the country but in its um its place in the world uh and he he you to do something to make a difference in that because what we've been doing is not working. The innovations that we have seen to bring the level of schools' reading and math programs up has been innovations in the States. They don't come from the bureaucracy in Washington, D. C. So what I hope to do is to put together a tool kit to leave behind and to share with these states this is what is working. These are some of the things that we have seen, the Mississippi miracle, Mississippi was next to last, you know, in reading. You know that very well, Senator. Um, and they, through their own invention, it took about ten years, but they didn't give up and they kept doing it. And the steps that they took and made, Louisiana adopted, Florida adopted, Tennessee, other states. And so we have seen through the state's innovation and continued funding, which will continue to come through, uh, through government programs, they have made a difference. And that's why states are the center of what's gonna be successful for them, whether it is looking at their children, um, you know, with disabilities. That is why in our, in our budget proposal, we have asked for the largest increase, you know, five hundred million dollars to go into IDEA funding because there are, uh, more students who need these. So I think that we've made some incredibly significant accomplishments. And we've just begun. I've only, I've only been here just a little bit over a year, uh, but we're on the road to continue to look at the states and what we need to help them, uh, to with their funding to take on more of these programs. And those programs that are federal will stay in the federal government. Title A stays in the federal government. IDA stays in the federal government to make that funding, but to send it, you know, directly to the state. So I'm pleased with where we've come so far, but we clearly have a lot of work yet to do. Thank you for the opportunity.