Breaking Deadlock

Summary

Campus Files, Episode: "Breaking Deadlock"

Date: August 20, 2025
Host: Margo Gray
Featured Guests: Adam Lotz (Historian), Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)

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Overview

This episode of Campus Files investigates the contentious history and uncertain future of the U.S. Department of Education. Framed by the recent push from President Trump’s second administration to dismantle the department, the episode traces the origins, evolution, and ideological battles over federal versus state control in education. Through expert interviews, archival audio, and a look at personal consequences for staff like Bonnie Luttrell, "Breaking Deadlock" explores the stakes and fallout of shifts in federal education policy.

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Episode Breakdown

1. Setting the Stage: The Current Crisis

• The episode opens with discussion of the Trump administration's recent executive order to dismantle the Department of Education and return authority to the states.
  • [01:02] Margo Gray summarizes: "The Trump administration has announced plans to dismantle it, and for many the move feels shocking, even unprecedented."
• Contextualizes this move as part of a centuries-long debate over who controls American education.

2. Historical Backdrop: From Civil War to Cold War

• Adam Lotz, historian, explains education has always been a national battleground.
  • [02:11] Adam Lotz: “There's never been a time in all American history or colonial history that there wasn't intense national attention on what schools were doing.”
• After its brief, symbolic founding post-Civil War, the Department was disbanded due to fears of federal overreach, especially among former Confederate states.
• The federal government’s minimal role persisted until Sputnik in 1957, when fears of technological inferiority led to a surge in federal science education funding, breaking the "deadlock."
  • [04:38] “A real shock to see and to hear. ... It struck Americans as frightening that the Soviet Union had been able to seize.” (Adam Lotz)

3. The Space Race and Federal Expansion

• The response to Sputnik led to unprecedented federal investment in STEM education to secure national security and innovation.
  • [07:21] Archival JFK audio: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade ... not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
• Under Kennedy and Johnson, the federal government invested deeply in higher education access, leading to milestones like the first moon landing and expansion of college access via loans and grants.

4. Forming the Department: Legislative Battles and Unlikely Turns

• Reformers sought a cabinet-level Department of Education; their biggest opponent, Congressman Leo Ryan, managed to stall the bill.
• Fate intervened with the Jonestown tragedy, resulting in Ryan's death and easing reformers’ path to establishing the Department in 1979.
  • [11:31] Adam Lotz: “Suddenly, through no political genius on Carter's part, the road to a department becomes much easier because the biggest opponent was killed by a suicide cult.”
• The episode draws attention to the odd turns of history influencing major institutions.

5. Constant Opposition and the Role of Federal Aid

• Even after its founding, the Department faced persistent efforts (notably by Ronald Reagan) to abolish it.
  • [15:16] Reagan (archive): “I would like to dissolve the $10 billion National Department of Education … and turn schools back to the local school districts…”
• The Department nonetheless became central in tracking educational outcomes and—especially—administering federal student aid.
  • [16:12] Bonnie Luttrell: “The Department of Education is one of the smallest agencies in government, but it does so much. The vast majority of the student loan market is owned by the Department of Education.”

6. Personal Stories: Federal Aid as a Lifeline

• Bonnie’s own life as a Pell Grant recipient highlights the Department’s crucial role.
  • [16:31] Bonnie Luttrell: “The work of FSA made my college experience and law school experience possible. … I had no other option.”
  • [17:22] “What FSA does is it makes loans available at terms that are set by law ... Everyone gets the same loan product. ... It is the only way millions of people go to school, myself included.”
• The Department is described as functioning as the fourth largest "bank" in the country by loan distribution volume.

7. The New Fight: Dismantling Efforts in the 2020s

• After years of relative stability, Trump’s reelection in 2024 brings renewed and more aggressive moves to gut the Department.
  • [20:25] Bonnie Luttrell: “I thought, there's no chance in hell Trump wins… Trump won. And then at that point, the reaction … was just, oh, fuck.”
• Staff become targets; Bonnie is put on a watch list for supposed “woke ideology.”
  • [22:34] Bonnie Luttrell: “This stupid list said it was something about like they considered it woke ideology—used the most unflattering picture I've ever seen of myself.”
• She resigns to protect her team as the Department is politically reoriented and staff are pushed out.

8. Program Consequences: Gutting Protections and Functions

• Complaint systems for borrowers are dismantled, oversight offices shut down, and mass layoffs proceed—threatening student loan administration and other core functions.
  • [24:39] Bonnie Luttrell: “We've seen the decimation, complete decimation of the offices designed to make sure borrowers were getting everything they're legally entitled to...”
• Supreme Court clears the way for firing 1,300 employees, gutting the agency off the books even as only Congress can formally eliminate it.

9. The Stakes: Why the Department Matters

• Without federal oversight and student aid, widespread access to higher education—and, by extension, opportunities for millions—is under threat.
  • [25:43] Bonnie Luttrell: “Having an educated workforce is good for everyone. I want my nurse to have gone to nursing school. … And that doesn't happen without the Department of Education.”
• The episode ends reflecting on historic cycles: Americans broadly agree education matters, but can’t resolve who should control and fund it.
  • [26:20] Adam Lotz: “Americans want good education for their kids. … But the fights about who's going to fund it and then especially who's going to control that budget have been really tough.”

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Memorable Quotes

• “There's never been a time in all American history or colonial history that there wasn't intense national attention on what schools were doing.”
  — Adam Lotz, [02:11]

• “The status of education in the federal government was always a hot button.”
  — Adam Lotz, [02:56]

• “I thought, there's no chance in hell Trump wins.... Trump won. And then at that point, the reaction ... was just, oh, fuck.”
  — Bonnie Luttrell, [20:25]

• “We've seen the decimation, complete decimation of the offices designed to make sure borrowers were getting everything they're legally entitled to…”
  — Bonnie Luttrell, [24:39]

• “Americans want good education for their kids.… But the fights about who's going to fund it and then especially who's going to control that budget have been really tough.”
  — Adam Lotz, [26:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Department’s History & Founding – [01:02] to [04:38]
• Shift After Sputnik & Federal Involvement – [04:38] to [08:58]
• Creation of Modern Department – [08:58] to [11:44]
• Persistence of Opposition & Federal Student Aid – [15:11] to [17:51]
• Personal Impact: Aid Access Stories – [16:12] to [17:51]
• Trump Era: Renewed Push for Abolition – [20:25] to [23:36]
• Destruction of Oversight & Mass Layoffs – [23:59] to [25:43]
• Reflections on the Stakes & Ongoing Debate – [25:43] to [27:11]

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Tone and Style

The episode is investigative and historical, blending expert analysis with deeply personal testimony. It is brisk and urgent, especially as it covers recent political changes, while also maintaining a clear-eyed view of the recurring ideological conflict over education’s purpose and control.

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Takeaway

Breaking Deadlock offers a sweeping narrative of America’s ongoing struggle over education governance, showing that beneath surface slogans lies a complex battle shaped by history, politics, and personal stakes. The episode leaves listeners with a deep understanding of both what the Department of Education does and what's at risk as its existence is threatened once again.

Transcript

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[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

You've heard of the Department of Education, and lately you've probably been hearing about it a lot. The Trump administration has announced plans to dismantle it, and for many the move feels shocking, even unprecedented.

[Podcast Host / Advertiser (e.g., Lena Dunham or Ad Voice)]

On March 20, President Trump signed this executive order, which is aimed at closing the US Department of Education and giving authority to the states.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

But in reality, it's just the latest chapter in a long running battle over who controls education in America, a battle that stretches all the way back to the Civil War and intersects with nearly every turning point in US History, from world wars to the space race to one of the country's most infamous cults. This week we're digging into that history, tracing the federal government's evolving role in education and how the Department of Education ultimately became a cornerstone of American life.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

Foreign.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

I'm Margo Gray. This week on Campus Files Breaking Deadlock.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

There's never been a time in all American history or colonial history that there wasn't intense national attention on what schools were doing.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

That's Adam Lotz, a historian and leading expert on American education. He knows better than most in the US Education has always been a political battleground. For generations, parents and policymakers have clashed over how we shape the minds of future citizens. It's a fight that's been raging since the end of the Civil War.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

The Department of Education was established after the war and it didn't do much. It was only going to have four employees, you know, a tiny budget. And it mostly was symbolic.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Tiny budget, tiny staff. But the controversy was massive.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

The status of education in the federal government was always a hot button.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Former Confederate states were deeply Opposed to the idea of a Department of Education for reasons that probably sound familiar today, they saw it as federal overreach and feared it would impose a Northern or Yankee perspective on their schools.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

Former Confederates at this point strongly object to any federal role in education. And they first just cut the budget. They engage in sort of personal attack on its first secretary.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

In reality, the department did little more than collect data. But the mere possibility that it might one day wield real power was enough to ignite a political firestorm. And just two years after its creation, the department was disbanded. What followed was a kind of stalemate, a decades long deadlock between two competing visions for American education. On one side were the reformers who believed the federal government had a responsibility to ensure every child had access to a high quality education. On the other side were the individualists who wanted schools left to states and families, free from federal interference. For nearly a century, the individualists had the upper hand. The federal government kept its distance and reformers struggled to gain political traction. But then, in October 1957, at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man made satellite to orbit the Earth. For 22 days, it circled the globe broadcasting a steady radio signal that even amateur radio operators could pick up from their backyards.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

A real shock to see and to hear. Radio was playing this pinging sound which if you understood that these were the sounds of a Soviet, a Russian satellite, the first satellite circling the Earth. It struck Americans as frightening that the Soviet Union had been able to seize.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

This scientific initiative nearly 50 years later. It's hard to fathom just how terrifying that moment was for Americans. The Soviet Union was Soaring directly over U.S. citizens, cities and military bases. And perhaps most unsettling of all, they'd vaulted ahead of the United States in.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

Science and technology, scientifically, militarily, politically. These tracking antennae, by the knowledge they will gather from the speeding orb, may well affect mankind as nothing before.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

The Soviets were also outpacing the US in science education, training two to three times as many scientists each year. Sputnik was a wake up call. America's education system, especially in science and math, was falling dangerously behind.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

Sputnik is a product of higher education, of instructors who teach much of the physics and mathematics in high school that we teach in college. Our survival may depend on degrees and graduates we are not now equipped to produce.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

In the 1950s, it was still illegal to teach evolutionary science in states like Tennessee and Arkansas. From a federal and defense perspective, the idea that huge swaths of the American populace, children were not being exposed to basic scientific content. So if you're a military leader, that's not just a shame, that's frightening.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Almost overnight, the reformers had a much stronger case to make. If the federal government stayed out of education, the US could lose its military and technological edge. Less than a year later, Congress approved hundreds of millions of dollars to strengthen and standardize science education across the country, despite fierce pushback from the individualists.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

It's hugely controversial. You have local leaders who infamously call in teachers on Christmas break to razor out sections on human reproduction and also to just like black out, book by book, page by page, sections that they found offensive not because they weren't true, not because they weren't important, but because they involved evolution or human reproduction.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

But still the deadlock had been broken and reformers moved quickly.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. We choose to go to the moon.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

In May 1961, President Kennedy laid out an ambitious to beat the Soviets to the moon. And he made one thing clear. America's colleges and universities would be at the center of that mission.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

But we do not intend to stay behind. And in this decade we shall make up and move ahead.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Kennedy told Congress. Increasing the quality and availability of education is vital to both our national security and our domestic well being. A free nation can rise no higher than the standard of excellence set in its schools and colleges.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

From Dallas, Texas, the flash, apparently official. President Kennedy died at 1:00pm Central Standard Time, 2:00 Eastern Standard Time, some 38 minutes ago.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Even after Kennedy's assassination, his vision lived on. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, picked up the mantle. One landmark bill opened the door to college for millions, offering loans, scholarships and grants on a scale that was unprecedented.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

Okay, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

And all of this investment in education helped propel the US ahead in the space race.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

It's probably not an overstatement to say that the dramatic surge of federal investment in STEM education was essential to this success. Without the support for colleges and universities, the US almost certainly would not have landed a man on the moon as early as 1969. For the reformers, it felt like the culmination of 50 years of work. But they weren't done yet. They wanted a cabinet level position, a Secretary of Education who would report directly to the President. Enter Jimmy Carter.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

What Carter wanted to do was what LBJ wanted to do, which is how do we use the power of the federal government to improve education, including federal funding.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

For the individualist, this was the third rail. Federal funding was one thing, but federal control over higher education was another thing entirely.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

One of the strongest foes was someone who had been a teacher. He's a Democrat. He's too all over the place to be called progressive or liberal. But it was. Congressman Leo Ryan was one of the biggest foes of Carter's plan.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Congressman Ryan was a formidable opponent. In fact, after the bill passed the Senate, he managed to block it from reaching reaching the House floor entirely. For a moment, it looked like the dream of a federal Department of Education might stay just that, a dream. But then, much like Sputnik had once broken the political deadlock, another strange twist of history reopened the door for reformers. Back in Congressman Ryan's district, a fanatical church called the People's Temple was raising alarms. Its members were reportedly building a remote settlement in Guyana called Jonestown, named for their charismatic and controlling leader, Jim Jones.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

But sometimes I'll speak in parables and when I speak in parables inside I'll be choked up in my chest will feel tight but when I say I.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

Am the.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Congressman Ryan led a delegation to see Jonestown firsthand. But as they tried to leave, he and several others were assassinated by followers of Jim Jones. Hours later, Jones orchestrated a mass suicide that claimed the lives of more than 900 people. The nightmare at Jonestown left more than 900 members of the People's Temple dead. Americans who had followed the Reverend Jim Jones into the Guyanese jungle in search of a better life.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

Suddenly, through no political genius on Carter's part, the road to a department becomes much easier because the biggest opponent was killed by a suicide cult.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

On October 17, 1979, the Modern Department of Education was established. Its mission was ambitious. To ensure access to high quality education for every American from kindergarten through college. At last, the reformers had achieved their goal and they wasted no time mobilizing the new department to fund and support education nationwide. But the individualists didn't disappear just because they'd lost. They stayed in the wings, waiting for the right moment to strike back. As summer winds down, I'm thinking about refreshing my wardrobe with staple pieces for the fall. Quint's is the first place I look. They have essentials that feel both effortless and stylish, perfect for layering and mixing. Their styles are versatile, and I find myself reaching for them again and again. I've been living in their cotton fisherman's flutter lately. It's cozy without feeling bulky, and the quality is incredible for the price. I also picked up one of their black ballet flats, and the craftsmanship easily rivals pieces I've paid double for. Quince has everything from chic cashmere and cotton sweaters starting at just $40 to classic denim and elevated basics you'll wear on repeat. The best part? It's all about half the cost of similar brands. They work directly with top artisans and skip the middlemen, so you're getting luxury without the markup. Plus, they only partner with factories that prioritize safe, ethical and responsible production. Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with quints. Go to quince.com campus for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com campus to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com campus hey there, cats and kittens.

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[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

For a trip through McDonald land. Now just turn around and see if.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

You won't find a hamburger patch as you have.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

Order the McDonaldland meal today and get the Mount McDonaldland shake with your very own character souvenir kit. My guess is that the best move for the quality of life in America in the future might very well be the establishment of this new Department of Education, because it will open up for the first time.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

In 1979, the Department of Education opened its doors after more than a century of debate and resistance, and almost immediately it came under fire. In fact, Ronald Reagan, then a presidential candidate, called for its dismantling.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

I would like to dissolve the $10.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

Billion National Department of Education created by.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

President Carter and turn schools back to.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

The local school districts where we built.

[Historical Figure / Archive Voice (e.g., JFK, news announcer)]

The greatest public school system the world has ever seen. I think I can make a case that the decline in the quality of.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

Public education began when federal aid became federal interference.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

But Reagan's plan ultimately fell apart, and for Decades, his calls to dismantle the Department of Education stood as the last serious threat. While some lawmakers and think tanks continued to question its role, the department became deeply embedded in the fabric of American education. It took on major responsibilities, tracking school performance and graduation rates, shaping national education policy, and administering emergency relief during crises like Covid. But perhaps its most critical role has been managing Federal Student Aid, the massive program that administers loans, grants and scholarships to millions of students every year.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

The Department of Education is one of the smallest agencies in government, but it does so much. The vast majority of the student loan market is owned by the Department of Education.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

That's Bonnie Luttrell. She's an expert on higher education in America and has worked within the federal student aid program known as fsa.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

The work of FSA made my college experience and law school experience possible. I was a Pell Grant recipient. Pell Grants are handled by federal Student Aid. I came from low income background and Pell Grants made my attendance at a public college possible. And then when I went to law school, anyone who has even considered law school knows how expensive it is. I got a scholarship and I had some of it covered, but it was still going to be $150,000. My family was not sitting on 150 grand. I had no other option.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Bonney's story is just one of millions. More than half of college students depend on federal aid, and it's federal student aid that makes that possible. In fact, Bonney points out that if you measured it by the amount of money it distributes, the Department of Education would rank as the fourth largest bank in the country.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

What FSA does is it makes loans available at terms that are set by law at an interest rate that's set by Congress. Everyone gets the same loan product. Everyone has access to the same safety net. You become disabled, you can get your loan discharged. If your school lies to you or defrauds you, you have built in defenses, these protections that make the promise of the American Dream accessible. It is the only way millions of people go to school, myself included.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Imperfect as it may be, the federal loan program has been a gateway to the American Dream. And that access has been transformative again and again. When the government has invested in education, the results have been extraordinary. After Sputnik, federal funding for science education helped put a man on the moon. That kind of investment in education has continued to fuel breakthroughs across every field. Thanks to federal loans, leaders like Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and countless others were able to pursue higher education. But just as important are the millions of everyday Americans, people whose names you'll never know, who built better lives because they had access to education. But for any of this to work, the Department of Education needs sustained effort and oversight. Which brings us back to Bonnie. Before joining the Department of Education, she worked at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or cfpb, an agency that makes sure banks and lenders play by the rules.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

I was an investigator in their complaints division and I still remember this complaint and I think about it all the time. It was a borrower who had a private student loan.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

This borrower had his grandmother co sign his loans. The plan was simple. After five years of on time payments, he could remove her from the loan and lift the burden off her shoulders.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

This borrower did everything right. His payment history was perfect. He was so on top of it that he was overpaying each month. And so one month he gets this bill for $0, doesn't make a payment, because how do you pay a $0 bill? And then he went to get his grandmother, his co signer, released from his loan, and his lender denied it because they said, well, you missed a payment here.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

The story stuck with Bonnie, so much so that she took a new job at the Department of Education, serving as the Federal Student Aid Ombudsman, a rule focused on helping borrowers resolve disputes with their federal student loans. And for years, she loved the work. But as the 2024 election grew closer, a sense of unease began to creep in. Since the Reagan era, no president had made a real push to dismantle the Department of Education. The long running battle between reformers and individualists had cooled, reduced to skirmishes over budgets, standardized testing, and local control. But Donald Trump's third campaign reignited the fight. And when he ultimately won, the individualists finally had the ally they'd been waiting for. Bonney knew change was certainly coming. What she didn't know was just how fast or how far it would go.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

I thought, there's no chance in hell Trump wins. But they didn't get what they needed from the Biden administration. And, you know, hindsight's 20 20, Trump won. And then at that point, the reaction, which was shared by many of my colleagues, was just, oh, fuck.

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[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

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[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

In November 2024, Donald Trump was elected to the presidency for the second time on a platform that included eliminating the department, Department of Education, and I'm going.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

To close the Department of Education and move education back to the states and we're going to do it fast.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

Early November, I will say there was a lot of crying from people at the department. You know, he campaigned on shutting the department down. Everyone thought they were going to lose their jobs.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Suddenly, the department wasn't just under scrutiny, it was under siege. And for employees like Bonnie, the the attacks became personal. Her name was added to a Department of Education watch list compiled by a conservative nonprofit targeting federal staff.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

This stupid list said it was something about like they considered it woke ideology used the most unflattering picture I've ever seen of myself.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Bonnie jokes about it now. But it's clear the temperature was rising and things were changing quickly.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

The day after the Trump election results, career staff and leadership at the Education Department immediately began taking steps to slow walk the Biden agenda and start enacting what they expected the Trump agenda to be.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

And part of that agenda immediately impacted Bonney's ability to support borrowers.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

For me, the writing was on the wall. The day after the election results, I saw the shift in a lot of the career leadership and how they were acting. And they made very clear to me that they viewed me as a problem with my position. As visible as it was, the longer I stayed, the more at risk I put my team. And I don't think it was fair to put my entire team in the line of fire. I'm not going to be the reason someone doesn't get a paycheck.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

In February 2025, Bonnie made the difficult decision to step down from her role. And in the months since, she's watched from the outside as the ground beneath the department slowly began to shift. At first it was subtlethe quiet removal of the prominent complaint button on the department's website, the one borrowers used to report loan issues. But the changes didn't stay small for long.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

In case you missed it, the Department of Education announced that on May 5, we will restart collections of student loans in default. There's no such thing as forgiveness, just shifting the payment burden from one party to another.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Secretary McMahon announced that the department would resume forced collections on student loans targeting borrowers who'd been unable to pay for years. With less than a month's notice, more than 5 million people were suddenly at risk of losing their tax refunds or even their Social Security benefits. At the same time, many of the offices within the department that once worked to ensure fair treatment for borrowers were suddenly being shuttered.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

We've seen the decimation, complete decimation of the offices designed to make sure borrowers were getting everything they're legally entitled to, which to me says, you don't actually care about borrowers, you don't care about taxpayers, you don't care about your constituency.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

More recently, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to begin firing roughly 1300 employees from the Department of Education. But Congress created the department, and under the law, only Congress has the authority to shut it down. Critics argue that these mass firings effectively sidestep that process, hollowing out the agency without formally closing it. Still, the layoffs are moving forward, and they're already taking a toll on one of the department's most vital functions, the federal student loan program. As students prepare to start a new school year this fall, that program is severely weakened and likely to get weaker as more employees are let go. Some students and families may already be feeling the impact, but the deeper, longer lasting consequences may not be fully seen for years to come.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

Having an educated workforce is good for everyone. I want my nurse to have gone to nursing school. I want my doctor to have gone to med school. I want my accountant to have gotten their degree in accountant. And that doesn't happen without the Department of Education.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

So much of American history has been defined by a fight over the role of the federal government. And perhaps nowhere has that fight been more intense than in education. Because here's the Americans overwhelmingly agree that education matters. We just can't seem to agree on who should be in charge of it. Here's Adam Lotz again.

[Adam Lotz (Historian / Expert)]

I think it shows the ways education has always worked, from Reconstruction all the way now to the Trump administration. Americans aren't divided about education in the biggest ways. Americans want good education for their kids. That's something that even in the most divided times Civil War, current administrations, Americans are always been united about that. But the fights about who's going to fund it and then especially who's going to control that budget have been really tough. And it takes things luckily like these unpredictable happenings in history to allow the deadlock to jolt Free.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Campus Files is an Odyssey Original Podcast this episode was written and reported by Ian Mont. Campus Files is produced by Ian Montgomery, Elliot Adler and me, Margo Gray. Our executive producers and story editors are Maddie Sprunkheiser and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basel and Andy Jaskowicz. Special thanks to Jenna Weiss Berman, J.D. crowley, Leah Rhys, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Schuff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hilary Van Ornam. Original theme music by James Waterman and Davy Sumner. If you have tips or story ideas, write to [e-mail].

[Podcast Host / Advertiser (e.g., Lena Dunham or Ad Voice)]

Hello, it's Lena Dunham. I host a podcast called the C Word with my dearest friend and historian of bad behavior, Alyssa Bennett.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

What is up?

[Podcast Host / Advertiser (e.g., Lena Dunham or Ad Voice)]

It's a chat show about women whose society is called Crazy.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

We're going to be rediscovering the stories.

[Bonnie Luttrell (Federal Student Aid Ombudsman)]

Of women's society dismissed by calling them.

[Margo Gray (Narrator / Main Host)]

Mad, sad or just plain bad.

[Podcast Host / Advertiser (e.g., Lena Dunham or Ad Voice)]

Listen to and follow the C Word with Lena Dunham and Alyssa Bennett. Available now wherever you get your podcasts.