Georgians with school-age children and who attended college with the help of federal student loans routinely interact with the U.S. Department of Education without realizing it. That’s because it’s among the many federal bureaucracies that, unless there’s a major hiccup, does most of its work in the background. 

With Republicans taking control of Congress and the White House in November, the Department of Education could disappear under a proposal outlined in the conservative policy blueprint called Project 2025. Vanishing a federal agency would require a battle in Congress and perhaps even the courts. But if the plan succeeded, its impact on vulnerable students and families who rely on funding and civil rights protections from the agency would be stark and obvious. 

“It’s just [about] the enforcement of laws, protecting students of color,” said Preston Green, a professor of law and educational leadership at the University of Connecticut and a national expert in school vouchers and school desegregation. “For instance, if there is this sort of disparate impact on students of color, the federal government could become involved. Without that department, you would be removing that level of oversight and protection.”

Capital B Atlanta is analyzing parts of Project 2025, a 900-page document compiled by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, to assess its potential impact on the lives of Black Atlantans. Former president Donald Trump has disavowed any connection to the plan, even though much of it was written by former officials of his administration. It contains calls for major policy revisions that would allow Trump the ability to remake every part of the federal government.

That includes eliminating the Department of Education altogether. The Department of Education oversees federal education policies, programs, and funding from K-12 to postsecondary institutions, administers federal financial aid programs, collects data, and ensures compliance with federal laws regarding civil rights and equal access to education.

For parents, students, school administrators, and student loan borrowers, that would mean a cascade of potential consequences, from slashing critical dollars for under-resourced schools to jeopardizing critical financing options for higher education and disappearing standards for curricula and educational quality. Policy experts say that state and local school departments would lose vital federal oversight, creating a void where the governing body once enforced and created laws that promoted the protection of student rights, administered federal funding for college, and streamlined educational practices.

How Project 2025 could impact public school funding in Atlanta

If adopted, Green said, states like Georgia would lose critical funding for underfunded, overwhelmed public school districts across the country. And in Atlanta Public Schools, where over 70% of the student population are economically disadvantaged, that could be catastrophic.

“There are historic disparities in funding in urban areas, and certainly in areas in the South,” Green said. “We have been pushing for the Department of Education to become involved in that and to try to resolve those problems … but that will be gone. The hope of them actually doing this would no longer be there.”

Julian Vasquez Heilig, a professor of educational policy studies at the University of Kentucky, said a vanishing education department would greatly affect Title I-designated public schools, or those that receive additional federal funding to help close educational and resource gaps. More than 50 of Atlanta Public Schools’ 83 learning sites were Title-I designated schools in 2022.

Title I is considered the federal government’s single biggest K-12 education program, which is part of what makes it a target of conservatives. But Project 2025 wouldn’t immediately eliminate the program and its $18 billion budget. Instead, the document calls for the program to be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services, which in turn would distribute that money to states in the form of block grants, with little regulation or oversight on what happens to the money after that.

Some argue that means giving states the flexibility to offer tailored and innovative approaches to supporting children in low income districts. But Helig said there’s reason to be concerned that the money wouldn’t end up supporting vulnerable students at all.

“There’s no guarantee that Title I funds that are supposed to be spent on low-income schools will continue to go to low-income schools,” Helig said. “The challenge is that when funding is logged at the state and local level, it’s done in an unequal way.”

Lax oversight of block grants could allow states yet another way to funnel dollars from underfunded public schools to charters–much like a controversial school choice bill passed in Georgia earlier this year–or even to religious-based educational institutions, said Janel George, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University and the founding director of its Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic.

“What we’re seeing before Project 2025 also is these recent court decisions, is that you’re basically rewriting our educational system,” she said.

How Project 2025 will impact funding for higher education

The document also calls for privatizing student loans and potentially cutting federal higher education grants like the Pell Grant, which benefits low-income citizens interested in attending college. 

Ashley Young, a higher education policy analyst for the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute, said that decentralizing the regulation of college financial aid, would deprive students of vital support in earning degrees and in paying the loans back once they are finished. 

“Federal funding for higher education is very important,” Young said. “Project 2025 doesn’t actually go too in depth about the Pell Grant or trying to eliminate that program specifically, however, it did touch on a lot of policies regarding debt relief.”

Also at risk: programs like the Biden administration’s Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) and Income Driven Repayment programs. 

The SAVE plan, particularly, has been highly contested and even blocked in federal court as it attempts to provide more generous terms than past income-based repayment plans, lowering monthly payments for eligible borrowers and allowing those with original principal balances of $12,000 or less to have their debt forgiven after 10 years. 

“What is important to note here is that Project 2025 wants to eliminate income-driven repayment plans, which are helpful for students — for borrowers, rather — who are struggling with paying their loans back, and they want to end the loan forgiveness program,” Young said. 

But George says, for Black voters, it’s important to look to the past for context.

“So much of this is repetitive,” George said. “We shouldn’t be surprised by Project 2025. It’s the same effort to maintain racial inequality.”