Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., is launching a “Save Our Colleges” marketing campaign on Wednesday towards President Donald Trump and Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon’s try to dismantle the Division of Schooling.
“The federal authorities has invested in our public colleges,” Warren mentioned in an unique interview with ABC Information. “Taking that away from our youngsters so {that a} handful of billionaires may be even richer is simply plain ugly, and I’ll battle it with every thing I’ve obtained.”
Warren advised she is working with college students, academics, mother and father and unions to “sound the alarm” nationwide.
“My start line with this marketing campaign is that I do know the facility of telling tales and the facility it brings to arrange folks into the battle. We’d like numbers to win, and that is how we begin,” Warren mentioned.
In a brief video obtained by ABC Information that Warren is posting to her roughly 20 million social media followers Wednesday morning, Warren says she is launching an investigation into reported plans to interchange Division of Schooling name facilities with chatbots. ABC Information has not independently confirmed these experiences.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks throughout a information convention with Democratic Senators about defending Social Safety advantages for People, on the Capitol, April 1, 2025.
Jim Watson/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Warren mentioned that by a mixture of federal investigations, oversight, storytelling and even lawsuits, she’s going to work with the neighborhood, together with lawmakers in Congress, to do every thing she will to defend public schooling. Warren didn’t present additional particulars on how she plans to problem the administration by federal oversight and lawsuits.
A former particular schooling trainer, Warren mentioned she opposes the Trump administration’s company overhaul as a result of she mentioned it could end in fired academics and elevated class sizes, including that packages for college kids with particular wants will “disappear.” Nonetheless, the Trump administration has vowed to maintain statutory funding, such because the packages for college kids with particular wants.
Trump mentioned these companies for college kids with disabilities, comparable to these protected by the People with Disabilities Schooling Act, will likely be rehomed in different departments, together with the Division of Well being and Human Companies, which is undergoing massive layoffs itself.
“They assume that the American persons are silly [and] will likely be fooled by slapping a distinct title on the door and that someway our youngsters will get the assistance that they are entitled to,” Warren instructed ABC Information.
“Nobody is fooled and positively not the youngsters who want that assist,” she added.
The Trump administration has mentioned it’s returning schooling to the states in dismantling the federal division and that college students will likely be higher served by their state departments.
The marketing campaign can be private for Warren. Within the video obtained by ABC Information, Warren mentioned she has seen along with her personal eyes what the Division of Schooling does for particular wants households and that she is doing every thing she will to “battle again.”
Warren mentioned she was impressed by her second grade trainer to affix the schooling ranks.
“At any time when somebody requested about my future, I might stand slightly taller and say: ‘I’ll be a trainer,'” Warren recalled. “It guided my total life.”
Final month, Trump signed an executive order that goals to intestine the Division of Schooling. It directs McMahon to shut the division utilizing all mandatory steps permitted beneath the regulation. Nonetheless, eliminating the division would require an act from Congress as a result of it was created by Congress.
Secretary of Schooling Linda McMahon stands with President Donald Trump in the course of the signing ceremony for an government order to close down the Division of Schooling within the East Room on the White Home in Washington, Mar. 20, 2025.
Carlos Barria/Reuters
The marketing campaign comes within the wake of the division reducing practically half its workforce final month. Lots of of staff within the Federal Scholar Help Workplace had been let go, which Warren mentioned might have “dire penalties” on the tens of thousands and thousands of pupil mortgage debtors who depend on the division’s $1.6 trillion pupil mortgage portfolio to attain increased schooling. Trump has mentioned pupil loans will now be dealt with by the Small Enterprise Administration.
“The Division of Schooling (ED) seems to be abandoning the thousands and thousands of oldsters, college students, and debtors who depend on a functioning federal pupil assist system to decrease schooling prices,” Warren and a bunch of Democratic senators wrote in a letter urging McMahon to reinstate the fired federal staff.
The FSA’s operations have already been affected, in line with a supply acquainted. The federal pupil mortgage web site was down briefly lower than 24 hours after the company cuts. Fired IT staff had been referred to as frantically to affix an hourslong troubleshooting name to revive the web site for thousands and thousands of debtors, in line with the supply.
As a part of Warren’s marketing campaign launch, the senator mentioned she will even spotlight the real-world influence on educators, college students and households by a collection of story collections. She mentioned she is encouraging neighborhood members to share submissions on how public schooling has influenced their lives and what it means to them. Warren instructed ABC Information she did the same marketing campaign with federal staff on the Client Monetary Safety Bureau earlier this yr.
The headquarters of the Division of Schooling are proven Mar. 12, 2025 in Washington.
Win McNamee/Getty Photos
Nonetheless, Warren’s investigations and federal oversight might be hampered by Democrats’ place in Washington.
“Democrats are within the minority within the Home and the Senate, and clearly we do not have the White Home, however not having as a lot energy as we would like doesn’t imply having no energy,” Warren instructed ABC Information. “We have nonetheless obtained so much we will do, and this mixture of investigations, oversight, storytelling and lawsuits is that we will mix extra energy and push again arduous, and it is already yielded some outcomes.”
In the meantime, the administration’s quest to abolish the division has already triggered a authorized battle by a coalition of states and schooling and civil rights teams, together with a bunch of academics unions and public college districts in Warren’s house state of Massachusetts.
The senator mentioned she is hopeful each one who cares about schooling joins her marketing campaign.
“We have got to battle for an America the place it is not simply the youngsters of billionaires who get schooling however it’s each child in each neighborhood who will get an awesome schooling,” she mentioned. “This battle is our battle.”
