ED Details Higher Ed Staff to Labor Department

Some staff at the Education Department will next week start working at the Labor Department, which is set to take over running a number of higher ed grant programs.

Under an interagency agreement signed last year, ED agreed to outsource most of its higher education programs, which include grants that support student success and historically Black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. ED officials have said outsourcing the grant programs will help to “streamline bureaucracy.” The agreements with Labor and other federal agencies are also part of a broader effort to shut down ED. Critics have questioned the legality of the agreements and the effectiveness of moving the programs to other agencies.

Labor will now essentially administer the grant programs, while ED will continue to set the budget, criteria and priorities for the grant programs and manage hiring and other HR processes, among other activities. ED said in the news release Thursday that grant recipients in the higher ed programs will transition to Labor’s grant and payment management system, “following the detail.” Both agencies will provide grantees with additional guidance.

“We are proud to begin implementing this historic partnership that will not only create a better coordinated federal approach to postsecondary education and workforce development, but will also ensure that students pursuing higher education pursue programs aligned with their career goals and workforce needs,” Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education David Barker said in a statement. 

The staff detail announced Thursday affects those who work in the Higher Education Programs Division of ED’s Office of Postsecondary Education. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of the union that represents ED employees, said in a statement that moving the federal workers and grant programs was “an unnecessary, unlawful move that will create confusion for grantees and chaos for staff.”

“After gutting the Education Department, the administration is now asking an overworked skeleton crew to manage a risky transfer to an agency with no educational expertise, weakening oversight and increasing the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse,” she added. “This is not efficiency—it’s an insult to the tens of millions of students who rely on the Education Department to protect their access to a quality education and to the taxpayers who rely on federal workers to ensure their money is not wasted.”