In 2001, conservative activist Grover Norquist declared that his goal was to shrink government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” More than two decades later, under the leadership of Secretary Linda McMahon, the U.S. Department of Education’s March 2025 reorganization delivers on that radical vision—not with fire and fury, but with vacancies, ambiguity, and quiet institutional collapse.
Vacant Seats, Hollow Power
With dozens of senior leadership roles left vacant, enforcement functions gutted, and policymaking handed over to political allies and industry insiders, the Department no longer resembles a federal agency tasked with protecting students and public investment. Instead, it has become a hollowed-out vessel primed for deregulation, privatization, and corporate exploitation.
The new organizational chart is littered with the word “VACANT.” From Chiefs of Staff and Deputy Assistant Secretaries to senior advisors in enforcement, civil rights, and postsecondary education, entire divisions have been effectively immobilized. The Office of Civil Rights is barely staffed at the top. The Rehabilitation Services Administration is leaderless. The General Counsel’s office lacks oversight in key regulatory areas. This is not streamlining—it is strategic self-sabotage.
Federal Student Aid (FSA), overseeing over $1.5 trillion in loans, is run by an acting chief. Critical offices such as the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) are fragmented, missing key leadership across multiple branches—especially those charged with accreditation, innovation, and borrower protections.
The Kent Controversy: A Symptom of Systemic Rot
The collapse of federal oversight is not only evident in the vacancies—it is also embodied in controversial political appointments. As education policy watchdog David Halperin has reported, the Trump administration’s nominee for Under Secretary of Education, Nicholas Kent, epitomizes the revolving door between the Department of Education and the for-profit college industry.
Kent’s career includes roles at Education Affiliates, which in 2015 paid $13 million to settle a Department of Justice case involving false claims for federal student aid, and later at Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), the lobbying group for the for-profit college sector. Under Kent’s policy leadership at CECU, the organization actively fought against borrower defense rules, gainful employment regulations, and other safeguards meant to protect students from exploitative educational institutions.
Despite this record, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee advanced Kent’s nomination on May 22, 2025, in a party-line 12–11 vote—without a hearing. HELP Ranking Member Bernie Sanders objected, saying, “In my view, we should not be confirming the former lobbyist that represented for-profit colleges.” Advocates, including Halperin and six education justice organizations, sent a letter to Chairman Bill Cassidy calling for public scrutiny of Kent’s background and the Trump administration’s destructive higher education agenda.
Among their concerns are the elimination of key enforcement staff and research arms at the Department, the cancellation of ongoing research contracts, the rollback of borrower defense and gainful employment protections, the $37 million fine reversal against Grand Canyon University for deceptive practices, and the Department’s silence on accreditation reform and oversight of predatory schools. These developments, the letter argued, mark a decisive return to the era of unchecked corporate education—where taxpayer dollars are funneled to dubious institutions and students are left with mountains of debt and worthless credentials.
“Mission Accomplished” for the Privatization Movement
This version of the Department of Education, stripped of its regulatory muscle and stocked with industry sympathizers, is not an accident. It’s the culmination of decades of libertarian, neoliberal, and religious-right agitation to disempower public education. The policy pipeline now flows directly from organizations like the Heritage Foundation and ALEC to appointed officials with deep ties to the industries they were once charged with policing.
Rather than serving the public, the department’s primary role now appears to be facilitating the private sector’s conquest of higher education—through deregulation, outsourcing, and the erosion of civil rights protections.
A Shrinking Federal Presence, an Expanding Crisis
The consequences are far-reaching. Marginalized students—Black, brown, low-income, first-generation, disabled—depend disproportionately on federal guarantees, oversight, and funding. As these protections recede, so too does their access to meaningful educational opportunity. Instead, they are increasingly funneled into high-debt, low-return programs or shut out entirely.
Meanwhile, the political vacuum left by this strategic dismantling is being filled by corporate actors, right-wing religious institutions, and profit-seeking "ed-tech" startups. The dream of public education as a democratic equalizer is being replaced by a market of extraction and exploitation.
The Dream Realized
Grover Norquist’s fantasy of drowning the government has now been partially fulfilled in the U.S. Department of Education. What remains is an agency in name only—a shell that no longer enforces its core mission. In the name of efficiency and deregulation, the department has abandoned millions of students and ceded its authority to those who view education as a commodity rather than a public right.
The danger now is not only what’s been lost, but what is being built in its place. The Higher Education Inquirer will continue to monitor the ongoing capture of education policy and fight for a system that serves students, not shareholders.
Sources:
U.S. Department of Education, Organizational Chart, March 17, 2025David Halperin, Republic Report, “The Senate Shouldn’t Vote on Trump Higher Education Pick without a Hearing”
U.S. Department of Justice press releases on Education Affiliates
Politico Pro Education updates, May 2025
Senate HELP Committee voting record, May 22, 2025
Heritage Foundation and CECU policy recommendations
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