Donald Trump has detailed big plans for the U.S. Department of Education, aiming to completely change how schools and colleges work across the country.

For instance, one of his main ideas was to completely shut down the Department of Education, which was first created in 1979 under President Jimmy Carter to oversee federal funding and support for schools.

This department is responsible for providing money to schools, helping students with disabilities, and giving grants like Pell Grants that help low-income college students afford their education.

Additionally, it supports the education of over 50 million K-12 students while managing $150 billion in student loans annually.

Because of this, Trump wants to shift control of education to individual states, saying they know their needs better than the federal government.

During his presidency, Trump tried to cut the Department of Education’s budget by billions of dollars.

As part of his efforts, his new campaign, called Agenda47, pushes for the department to be shut down entirely.

He claims it promotes “wrong ideas” about race, gender, and politics.

However, getting rid of the department would be difficult.

In truth, Trump would need Congress to agree, and even with Republican control of the House of Representatives, many lawmakers do not support this plan.

In fact, past efforts to shut down the department have failed.

Moreover, Trump also wants to change what students learn in schools.

For example, he advocates bringing back “patriotic education” and wants history lessons to focus on the United States’ founding values.

To achieve this, he plans to bring back the 1776 Commission, a program that changes how U.S. history is taught.

Schools that teach topics like racism, gender identity, or diversity could lose federal funding under his plan.

In recent years, similar state-level efforts have led to over 10,000 books being removed from school libraries, according to PEN America, a group that supports free speech.

Likewise, another part of Trump’s plan is to give families more school choices.

Specifically, he supports letting public education money follow students to private schools, charter schools, or even homeschooling.

While supporters of this idea say it gives families more options, critics worry it will take money away from public schools that already don’t have enough funding.

To illustrate, voters in Nebraska, Kentucky, and Colorado have recently rejected plans to expand school choice, which shows that not everyone supports the idea.

Similarly, Trump also has ideas about teachers.

For one, he wants to end tenure laws that protect teachers from being fired without a fair process.

Instead, he wants teachers to be paid based on how well their students perform, an approach called merit pay.

Although some studies show this can work, critics say it doesn’t account for challenges teachers face, like students in underfunded schools or from low-income families.

In addition, Trump wants a new system to certify teachers who share “patriotic values,” though it’s unclear what that would involve.

Furthermore, Trump plans to create a new free university for higher education called the “American Academy.”

This institution would be funded by taxing and fining private colleges.

According to Trump, it would provide an alternative to colleges he believes are too liberal.

Meanwhile, important programs like Pell Grants and federal student loans, which the Department of Education manages, could be affected if the department is shut down.

As a result, over 40 million Americans who owe more than $1.5 trillion in student loans might face uncertainty about how these loans would be handled under Trump’s plan.