Education Secretary Linda McMahon faced backlash from both sides of the aisle on Tuesday during a Senate Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee hearing on the President鈥檚 proposed FY27 budget. The President鈥檚 budget requests $76.5 billion for the Department of Education, a $2.3 billion decrease from the 2026 enacted level.
TRIO programs were a major point of discussion, with nearly every Senator expressing support for the programs, and questioning McMahon over proposed cuts.聽Several Senators also used their time to draw attention to the department鈥檚 Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is facing a 35% funding decrease. In March 2025, the Trump administration fired over half of OCR鈥檚 lawyers and staff and shut down seven of the twelve regional OCR offices. In a heated exchange between Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), McMahon denied responsibility for these staffing cuts, but said the department was working to hire more lawyers to work through the backlog of cases.
Several senators also highlighted the dismantling of the department, and questioned McMahon on restructuring, including the plan to shift the $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department, and moving special education to HHS. Throughout the hearing, McMahon defended the budget cuts and promised that consolidation and restructuring would deliver better results for students and families. In her testimony, :
鈥淚n November of 2024, the American people elected President Trump with a clear mandate: to sunset a 46-year-old, $3 trillion, failed education bureaucracy in Washington, DC, and return authority to where it belongs鈥攖o parents, teachers, and local leaders. Amid record-low test scores and record-high numbers of students buried in debt, Americans want results.聽Today, I can confidently attest that we are delivering on the vision of educational renewal that, for decades, many promised but none delivered.鈥�