This letter is written by Roberto J. Rodriguez, Assistant Secretary, Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, U.S. Department of Education. The letter is in response to questions brought to the U.S. Department of Education (Department) regarding the permissibility of Department grantees and subgrantees using Federal funds granted by…

Background: Since 2010, there has been significant growth in the United States in the number of students with intellectual disability accessing higher education, driven by federal legislation and funding. Currently, over 340 institutions of higher education provide programs of study for students with intellectual disability. Of these programs, 134…

Across the country, charter schools now serve a diverse student body of 3.7 million students in nearly 8,000 charter schools and family demand for charter schools continues to grow. The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is the only source of federal funding that supports the growth of charter schools to meet this community need, but the CSP has been…

Service-contingent student loan forgiveness and loan repayment programs enable borrowers to have all or part of their student loan debt forgiven or repaid in exchange for work or service in specific fields or professions. In both loan forgiveness and loan repayment programs, borrowers typically qualify for benefits by working or serving in certain…

Demand for charter schools is declining. In sixteen of the forty-one states that have published 2021-2022 enrollment numbers, charter school enrollment has dropped, in some cases, by substantial amounts. In an additional six states, charter enrollment has stalled with increases of fewer than 200 students in charter schools across the state. Using…

In July 2025, President Trump signed the Republican-led H.R. 1, the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB) into law. The new law is a sweeping tax and spending package that forgoes trillions in federal revenues to award tax cuts to the wealthy while stripping essential care and protections from women and families. While implementation of the…

The purpose of this flash report is to share with the U.S. Department of Education (Department) observations made by the Office of Inspector General (OIG) concerning grantees and subgrantees inconsistently reporting audit data on Department subprograms, or unique components of a program, to the Federal Audit Clearinghouse (FAC), the designated…

The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is the nation's only source of dedicated federal funding to support the creation, expansion, and replication of public charter schools. Since FY2019, the CSP has been flat funded at $440 million. The CSP amounts to less than 1% of federal spending on K-12 education, however, it has a substantial impact on the…

About half of the more than $1 trillion in outstanding federal student Direct Loans are being repaid by borrowers using IDR plans. Some borrowers in IDR plans are now potentially eligible for forgiveness of their remaining loan balances after 20 or 25 years of payments. GAO was asked to review IDR forgiveness. This report examines: (1) how many…

The William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) program is the single largest source of federal financial assistance to support students' postsecondary educational pursuits. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that in FY2025, $93.1 billion in new loans will be made through the program. As of the end of the third quarter of FY2024,…

In early 2020, in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump Administration declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Service Act, a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, and a nationwide emergency under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. Congress and the U.S.…

Evidence shows that what students study matters as much as, if not more than, where they study. Program-level measures can provide important data on student outcomes, which will allow policymakers to hold institutions and programs that receive federal funding accountable. This fact sheet highlights some of the most frequently discussed measures…

"Still Asleep at the Wheel" continues the investigation of the U.S. Department of Education's Charter Schools Program (CSP) that began with the March 2019 report "Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride" (ED612862). This report takes up where the first…

The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other institutional settings. The child nutrition programs support meals and snacks served to…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws providing federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education were enacted in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. The second of these laws provided a higher amount of funding than the first, and the third…