The U.S. Department of Education signed six new agreements in November to decentralize its core responsibilities and assign some offices to other departments. The announcement is part of the Trump administration’s plan to “break up the federal education bureaucracy” and eventually “return education authority to the states.”

The Department of Labor will now help manage student grant programs previously administered by the education department’s Office of Postsecondary Education. Affected initiatives include the TRIO program, which prepares underrepresented and disadvantaged high schoolers for college and provides eligible college students with academic and personal counseling. Others impacted include several programs that provide financial and structural support for teachers and students at historically Black colleges and universities.

“With proper oversight by ED, [the Department of Labor] will manage grant funds, provide technical assistance, and integrate ED’s postsecondary education programs into the suite of programs DOL already administers,” read an official U.S. Education Department fact sheet about the new agreement. “ED will maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight of these programs.”

The Trump administration claims this partnership agreement will promote workforce development and expand access to career pathways. While the new agreements do not affect federal student loan and grant programs, officials have not ruled out attempting to move these programs to other agencies at a later date, according to reporting by Politico.

Department of Labor officials will also help operate K-12 programs with the education department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. Two of the signed agreements move the Office of Indian Education to the Interior Department and allow the State Department to help manage all federal global education and foreign language programs.

The Department of Health and Human Services will assume a larger role in managing a childcare program for parents in college and supporting the work of an international medical school accreditation panel.

In July, the Education Department implemented an agreement transferring other workforce development program responsibilities to the Department of Labor.

U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon defended the administration’s policy approach.

“The Trump Administration is taking bold action to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states,” McMahon said in a Nov. 18 statement. “Cutting through layers of red tape in Washington is one essential piece of our final mission.”

McMahon’s Education Department also said the new agreements comply with a federal law allowing one executive agency to receive services from another agency.

Since taking office for his second term, President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to dismantle the Department of Education. In March, Trump instructed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “facilitate the closure of the Department of Education” through all legally available means. Before signing the executive order, Trump said his administration would “shut it down as quickly as possible.”

At the time, New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand criticized Trump’s executive order.

“Make no mistake — individual states simply do not have the funding, personnel, or expertise to provide this same level of support to millions of students,” Gillibrand said in a March 20 statement. “President Trump is prioritizing minimal cost savings from cutting a small federal department at the expense of the literacy and math skills that will allow our kids to secure high-quality, good-paying jobs in the future.”

The administration has slashed nearly half of the department’s workforce since January.

On Nov. 25, a group of public school districts, public employee unions, teachers and a disability rights advocacy group sued the Trump administration in federal court, arguing that McMahon lacks the legal authority to assign department functions to other agencies without congressional approval.

A Binghamton University spokesperson did not return Pipe Dream’s request for comment.