The DOE discussion upthread got me curious about the Department and its budget.

Their website seems pretty informative. ed.gov

While I only spent a minute or two there, it seems to me like most of the money that passes through that Department goes to financial aid to college students (Pell grants, in particular) and aid to local schools.

The overall theme of the place seems to be that it spends money on programs designed to increase student performance. I suspect (but I do not know) that the real-life consequence of this is that money for the “frills”, like special ed and the like, comes heavily from the DOE.

So if the Dept were to cease to exist, you would see a couple of things happen right away: a big push to re-fund the Pell grants program, and a big push at the local level to replace those funds with locally generated revenues.

FWIW