DeWine was present when U.S. president Donald Trump signed the executive order two weeks ago that begins to dismantle the federal Department of Education.
DeWine said it’s unclear what Congress will do as there are functions that Congress would have to approve disbanding.
“What we’ve seen the administration do, is start to shift over some of the funds, shift over some of the functions to other departments,” DeWine said. “As governor in Ohio, what’s really important to me, and I think to Ohio, is that we have more opportunity, more flexibility to focus on things that are important in Ohio.”
He said there will still be significant focus on reading, children with disabilities and poorer children.
“I don’t see those priorities changing at all,” he said.
Federal loans and grants
Millions of college students receive federal loans and Pell Grants, which are for students who meet certain poverty guidelines.
Pell Grants are not expected to run out of money this school year. But the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan organization that provides information to members of Congress about the budget, projects a budget shortfall of about $2.7 million for Pell Grants in fiscal year 2026. That problem is unrelated to the cuts at the U.S. Department of Education.
Ashley Overman, Montgomery County Educational Service Center college access counselor, said there has been a lot of worry from students but she encourages them to continue to try to fill out the Free Application for Student Aid, which helps students find funding to afford college.
“I had a student say to me that they didn’t think they needed to do the FAFSA since Trump was trying to close the DOE,” Overman said. “I assured them that FAFSA will still go on, regardless.”
James Cosby, of Bottom Line, said he personally had felt the impact of income-based repayments being frozen and the applications and recertification apps being down.
“My Federal loans were shifted from IBR to Standard repayment, and it increased my payments by a few hundred dollars,” Cosby said. “That has happened to a lot of folks I know. Judges are fighting to get IBR program reinstated, but it is taking some time.”
Public school funding
Federal funding to local public schools has not been cut, but some school officials have said they are worried about block grants given to states rather than coming from the federal government, which could change the formulas of how schools receive funding.
Federal funding from the U.S. Department of Education provides money for special education, funding to train teachers and principals, and helps supplement funding for poorer and lower-performing districts.
Part of that percentage of federal funding also comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the U.S. Department of Education. Schools all get a significant amount of funding for free school breakfast and lunch reimbursements. Preliminary USDA data for Ohio from last school year shows more than $460 million reimbursed for school lunch, and $164 million in school breakfast reimbursements.
Ohio public school districts received about 10.4% of the yearly budget in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce’s Cupp Report, which compares various facts about school districts to other districts.
But the percentage of the yearly budget has varied considerably between 2019-2020, the year before school districts began getting additional federal funding from federal COVID-19 aid, and the 2023-2024 school year.
In 2019-2020, districts got about 6.8% of the total budget for that school year from the federal government, according to the Cupp Report from that year. But in the 2021-2022 school year, when districts started getting federal COVID-19 aid, about 15% of Ohio’s individual school district’s budget came from federal sources, according to the Cupp Report.
Now that federal COVID-19 funding has run out, schools are getting less money from the federal government.
In an informal survey done by the Dayton Daily News with local school districts, some districts, like Centerville, reported about 2.5% of their entire budget for the school year coming from federal funding, according to information provided by treasurer Laura Sauber.
Others, though, reported a higher percentage. Trotwood-Madison treasurer Janice Allen reported roughly 8% of the budget for this school year coming from federal funding. Dayton, the largest urban district in the area, reported roughly 10.5% of funding coming from federal sources for this school year, according to information provided by treasurer Hiwot Abraha.
State-level data isn’t available yet for this school year.
About the Author
