WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a long-anticipated executive order seeking to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, which he said was “45 years in the making.”

“We’re going to shut it down and shut it down as quickly as possible,” Trump said before signing the order Thursday. “It’s doing us no good. We want to return our students to the states.”

It comes a little more than a week after the agency announced it would lay off nearly half its staff as part of its “final mission” as the Trump administration follows through on its promise to cut federal bureaucracy.

The department supplies a small percentage of funding to public schools, enforces anti-discrimination laws and administers the Student Aid Program. It also oversees federal student loans held by nearly 43 million people, or 1 in 6 American adults, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Now, borrowers are wondering what it will mean for their loans and repayment plans. 

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If the department does fully shut down, they’re not going away. Trump said they would most likely be overseen by a different federal agency. 

“For the most part, students wouldn’t even notice,” said Andrew Gillen, research fellow at the Cato Institute for Economic Freedom previously told USA TODAY. “Where you mail your FAFSA, or repayment checks, might change.”

Trump acknowledged Thursday that he will likely need legislation to pass through Congress to fully dismantle the agency, saying he hopes lawmakers will vote for it “because it might come before them.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon McMahon told NewsNation earlier this month that federal aid, including student loans and Pell Grants, “might be best served in another department.” She added that Trump understands he needs to work with Congress. 

“I think my job is to convince Congress that the steps that we are taking are in the best interest of the kids,” McMahon told NewsNation.

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What happens to student loans without the Department of Education?

Before signing the order Thursday, Trump said work to provide Pell grants, Title I funding, and programs for special needs students that the department currently oversees will be preserved and distributed to other departments.

Trump told reporters in the White House on March 6 that student loans would be brought under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department, Commerce Department or the Small Business Administration (SBA). 

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

He added that he thought it would make sense for the SBA to oversee student loans and that the agency’s new administrator, Kelly Loeffler, a former Republican senator from Georgia, liked the idea. 

“That is by the way the most complicated thing in moving, but it’s very simple if you do that,” Trump said.

Gillen said shifting oversight of federal student aid to the Treasury Department would make for a more seamless transition. 

“For a lot of the student loan repayment plans, you need income verification,” Gillen said. “Treasury already has that. So just from an administrative perspective, Treasury already has a lot of information that is necessary to implement the student loan programs.” 

Gillen added the Treasury Department also already has the infrastructure to handle millions of borrowers.

“Adding 40 million new borrowers wouldn’t be out of left field for them,” he said.

While a change in oversight isn’t likely to affect borrowers’ existing loans, experts warn there could be a delay in getting applications processed or more errors in the system as accounts are moved over during the transition period.

It’s unlikely that student loans would be parceled out to more than one organization, Gillen said, but oversight of other programs run by the Education Department could be distributed to different agencies.

While some advocacy groups including Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education support the department’s dismantling, others are fiercely opposed.

Ailen Arreaza, executive director of the family advocacy nonprofit ParentsTogether Action, called the move a “full-on attack.”

“Parents want to fix our public education system, not dismantle it,” Arreaza said in a statement to USA TODAY. “Gutting the Department of Education leaves families with fewer resources for students and no oversight. This is a full-on attack — not just on public education but on kids and families themselves.”

Advocates from organizations representing students, parents and teachers, including the American Federation of Teachers, Educators for Excellence, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates and The National Center for Youth Law, released statements condemning plans to cut the department before Trump signed the order.

Reach Rachel Barber at [email protected] and follow her on X @rachelbarber_