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’s proposed FY27 budget. The President’s 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. Several Senators also used their time to draw attention to the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is facing a 35% funding decrease. In March 2025, the Trump administration fired over half of OCR’s 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, she remarked:
“In 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—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 that, for decades, many promised but none delivered.”