In hearings, McMahon faces questions about the shrinking federal role in schools and colleges

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon had a complicated job this week: To explain to lawmakers the Trump administration’s new fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for a department McMahon and President Trump have both committed to close.

According to a new budget summary, the administration wants to cut the Education Department’s funding by 15%, while largely preserving the two most important federal funding streams to K-12 schools: Title I, for schools in low-income neighborhoods, and IDEA grants to states, which help support students with disabilities. It is proposing cuts to other programs instead, including TRIO, which help low-income and first-generation college students.

On Wednesday, McMahon testified before the House education committee and, on Tuesday, before a Senate appropriations subcommittee. Here are several moments that stood out:

• The definition of insanity

In Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican, asked McMahon, “What’s the definition of insanity?”

“Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome,” McMahon answered.

Mullin’s point, based on declining test scores: Whatever the U.S. Department of Education has been doing over the years, “It’s not working. What we’re doing is not working.”

The notion that U.S. students have been failing academically and that the Education Department is to blame has been Republicans’ leading argument in support of gutting the department, and it came up time and time again in this week’s hearings with McMahon.

Critics of that argument have noted that the department does not run the nation’s schools. It can’t tell districts or states what to teach or how to teach it.

In fact, in Tuesday’s hearing, Sen. Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama, rightfully highlighted her state’s exceptional academic progress in recent years, something NPR has documented. Another state, Louisiana, has also improved remarkably.

• Colleges may be on the hook for student loans

When it comes to student loans, McMahon said colleges need to get “a little skin in the game.” She suggested that the federal government should not be responsible for all loans that go unpaid by students.

“Loans are not forgiven or just go away, they’re just shouldered by others,” she said.

A plan to force colleges and universities to repay a portion of the loans their students do not has been included in House Republicans’ big reconciliation bill. Republicans also want to make it clear when a given college program isn’t giving students a good return on their investment.

“If you want to get a student loan … you’ve got to go get a degree in something where actually you might be able to do something useful when you’re done with it,” said Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican.

Such a shift would require significant changes to the student loan system and federal oversight of colleges.

• Big mental health cuts

In Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Democrats’ toughest questions for McMahon were about the department’s decision to stop paying out $1 billion in grants to school districts to hire mental health professionals, including counselors and social workers.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told McMahon: “It’s a really cruel thing to do to those kids. Did you think about the impact?”

McMahon doubled-down on the department’s explanation of the funding freeze, that some of these programs were tainted by what the administration considers toxic DEI ideology.

She also said that “the states and the local areas, I think, are the best place where we need to concentrate for these particular programs.”

The administration uses this trust-the-states approach throughout its budget: For the programs it does not want to cancel outright, the budget calls for stripping away regulations and sending the money to states in chunks, via block grants, that can be spent at the discretion of state leaders.

For example, the budget would fold federal funding for rural schools, students experiencing homelessness, literacy instruction and a host of other unrelated programs into one, generic bundle of money that would go to states.

• The fate of Upward Bound and the other TRIO programs

The department’s fiscal year 2026 budget would end a cluster of federal programs known collectively as TRIO, meant to help low-income and first-generation students access and succeed in college. And McMahon heard bipartisan support for TRIO and pleas to save the programs.

At one point during Tuesday’s hearing, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins pointed out that she was wearing a Maine TRIO pin on her lapel and that three of her staff members had gone through TRIO. Collins said she had seen first-hand how the programs had changed the lives of many vulnerable Americans for whom college might have otherwise been out of reach.

When asked by Collins why the administration thinks TRIO isn’t worth the investment, McMahon answered that the department of education lacks the ability to audit TRIO, to make sure the federal funding is being used appropriately.

Multiple senators voiced support for TRIO during the hearing and, at one point, New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen told McMahon, “if there is a problem with accountability, let’s address that … but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

• Who should pay for workforce programs?

The administration’s proposed consolidation of workforce-development programs was met with a range of responses, from slight apprehension to open hostility, from lawmakers from both parties.

Rep. Bobby Scott, a Virginia Democrat, pressed the Secretary to put a number on the cuts across the budget: “When the dust settles do we understand that there will be about a 33% cut across workforce development?”

McMahon did not answer the question with a yes or no, but continued to highlight the need for workforce development without the federal government shouldering the cost.

Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan, also a Democrat, made a plea for her home state: “We are competing on a world stage,” she said of Michigan’s manufacturing apparatus. “We need these engineering jobs, we need these apprenticeship programs.”

In a later exchange with a Republican representative, Mark Messmer of Indiana, Secretary McMahon said the administration was looking into expanding public-private partnerships for career and technical education.

She cited a program in West Virginia that is a partnership between community colleges and the car manufacturer Toyota. Students there train in the auto plant and take classes at the college to develop a built-in workforce funded by the employer, she said.