US President Donald Trump is expected to issue an executive order demanding the shutdown of the Department of Education – a long-held goal of conservatives.

Since the Republican returned to the White House, the department has already announced plans to slash about half of its workforce.

But totally shutting down the agency would be difficult without an act of Congress.

Established in 1979, the department oversees funding for public schools, administers student loans and runs programmes that help low-income students.

Trump and his allies have accused the agency of indoctrinating young people with racial, sexual and political material.

A common misconception is that the Department of Education operates US schools and sets curricula – that responsibility actually belongs to states and local districts.

The agency does oversee student loan programmes and administers Pell grants that help low-income students attend university.

It also helps fund programmes to support students with disabilities and for students living in poverty.

And the department enforces civil rights law designed to prevent race or sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools.

The department’s allocation was $238bn (£188bn) in fiscal year 2024 – less than 2% of the total federal budget.

The agency has about 4,400 employees, the smallest of any cabinet-level department.

Most public funding for US schools comes from state and local governments.

In 2024, the Education Data Initiative estimated that the US spends a total of just over $857bn on primary and secondary education – the equivalent of $17,280 per pupil.

On his own, no.

Not only would Trump need congressional approval to get rid of the department, but he would also probably need a supermajority in the US Senate – 60 out of 100 senators.

Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, so they would need at least seven Democrats to vote to abolish the agency – a political longshot.

Even in the House of Representatives, Trump might struggle to gain necessary support.

A vote last year to abolish the education department – which was attached as an amendment to another bill – failed to pass as 60 Republicans joined all Democrats in the House to vote no.

Trump has moved to shrink other government departments in recent weeks, despite questions about the legality of those moves.

A draft of Trump’s order to dismantle the education department, obtained last month by the Washington Post, acknowledged that only Congress could get rid of the agency outright, but executive action could direct the agency to begin to wind itself down.

Education department employees are among those who are the focus of the administration’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.

The education department oversees a huge portfolio of loans to university students, which Trump has indicated will be shifted to a different government agency.

“I don’t think the Education [Department] should be handling the loans,” Trump has said. “That’s not their business.”

Experts say it’s most likely that the portfolio, which includes more than $1.5tn (£1.16tn) in loans taken out by more than 40 million Americans, could be shifted to the US Department of the Treasury.

A White House fact sheet said the order would direct the education secretary to ensure the “uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely”.

No matter what eventually happens, borrowers will still have to pay the loans back.

Court rulings and Trump’s policies have reversed some changes that former President Joe Biden attempted to make to lower borrowing costs and forgive some debts.

The idea of eliminating the education department has been floated by Republicans for nearly as long as it has existed.

During Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign, he pushed for it to be dismantled.

Republicans have historically pushed against centralising education policy, believing that it is best left up to individual states and localities.

More recently they have accused the education department of pushing what they describe as “woke” political ideology on to children, including on gender and race.

Trump’s allies also want to expand school choice, which would allow students and families to use public money to select private or religious alternatives to public schools.

Conservatives argue that education department functions should be handled by other agencies, for instance that civil rights infractions are the Department of Justice’s domain.