As President Donald Trump prepares to order the dismantling of the Department of Education, the financial arm of the agency—which makes loans directly to borrowers and manages trillions of dollars in student debt—faces an uncertain future, with steep staff cuts and lack of communication exacerbating the uncertainty, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former department employees.
The $1.64 trillion financial portfolio is managed separately from the department’s policy apparatus, the latter of which Trump has sought to wind down or reassign to other agencies. But Trump acknowledged Thursday that the massive loan balance was a complicating factor in his effort to shutter the agency.
“We’ve actually had that discussion today,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, suggesting that the debt could land at Treasury, Commerce, or the Small Business Administration. He said SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler “would really like to do it.”
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