Trump Administration Begins to Send ED Employees to DOL
Maria Carrasco
January 16, 2026
The Trump administration on Thursday announced its next steps to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) by sending higher education agency staff over to the Department of Labor (DOL) beginning next week, a move that is also complicating congressional negotiations over ED’s annual funding.
Staff in the Higher Education Programs (HEP) Division of ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) will begin working at DOL starting on January 20. With this transition, ED noted that HEP grantees will transition to DOL’s Grant Solutions and Payment Management System in an effort to align the grants management and payment systems across ED and DOL’s postsecondary and workforce programs.
Earlier in November, ED announced six new interagency agreements (IAAs) aimed at transferring several of the department’s responsibilities to other federal agencies, which include DOL. Under this agreement, DOL will “take on a greater role in administering postsecondary education grant programs authorized under the Higher Education Act (HEA),” ED stated in November.
