Department of Education Unveils Regulatory Agenda for 2026, Targets DEI, Title IX and College Integration

The Trump administration is moving forward to rewrite the laws governing American higher education.

The Department of Education released its 2026 regulatory agenda on Friday, laying out 19 proposed changes that would overhaul human rights enforcement, financial aid eligibility, accreditation, and how the government defines sex under federal education law, a major set of priorities first reported by Politico.

The full list of regulations, part of the administration’s 2026 Consolidated Plan, summarizes the department’s priorities and the timelines expected to reach the finalization of each regulation. Six of the 19 items deal directly with higher education, while the other four deal with the maintenance of human rights. The agenda provides only brief descriptions of what the department intends to change, without further details, and the proposed timelines are widely understood in all regions as aspirational rather than binding. At least four items on this year’s list were, in fact, taken from 2025.

Taken together, the proposals closely follow President Trump’s campaign promises and the executive orders he signed last year addressing the legal definition of sexuality, the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, efforts to combat anti-Semitism on campus, and a broad overhaul of higher education oversight.

What is an Integrated Agenda?

The Consolidated Agenda for Regulatory and Deregulation Actions is the federal government’s master list of upcoming regulations for all agencies, not just the Department of Education. Published twice a year, usually in the spring and fall, the agenda’s main purpose is to bring transparency to the executive branch by providing advance public notice of what laws agencies plan to propose, revise, or repeal, before those laws are officially written or released for comment.

Department Shifting Focus

Last summer, after Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, the department spent much of its bandwidth negotiating three major policy packages in less than a year. Officials also prioritized reauthorization regulations, a method administrators have used as a way to influence which colleges can get state aid, who they hire, and what their courses look like.

With that reauthorization now moving forward and the OBBBA rules in place, Education Secretary Linda McMahon is looking elsewhere, including overhauling how the Office of Human Rights investigates discrimination complaints.

Priority Items on the Agenda

Reducing DEI. The department plans to amend regulations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify how the law’s prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, and national origin “contributes to the development and implementation of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.” The legislation is expected to also define how, in the administration’s opinion, Title VI can interact with race-related, special or ethnic groups and educational programs. This fits in with the White House’s broader attack against DEI, which has expanded the Supreme Court’s ban on racial considerations in admissions to include co-ed and out-of-school programs more broadly. Separately, the administration has policies floating in the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration that would deny federal grants to programs deemed to promote dissent or DEI.

Defining sexuality under Title IX. In accordance with the January 2025 executive order stating that there are only two sexes, the department intends to amend the Title IX regulations to clarify that “sex” refers specifically to a person’s biologically fixed classification as male or female. The move follows a recent Supreme Court decision upholding a state ban on transgender athletes competing on same-sex teams; The Court’s conservative majority wrote that “gender” in Title IX “cannot be plainly construed to refer to anything other than natural sex.”

Eliminating disparate impact theory. The department is determined to overturn a legal doctrine, enacted in 1991, that allows a neutral policy to be found to be discriminatory if it unfairly harms a particular group.

Reducing external influence. Officials plan to codify an executive order requiring colleges to disclose gifts and relationships from outside donors, with federal funding in line with institutions that fail to comply.

Federal aid eligibility and integration. The department wants to overhaul aid eligibility rules that it says currently “unnecessarily target religious or for-profit institutions and interfere with effective and profitable mergers, acquisitions, and transfers of institutions of higher education.” With so many colleges under financial pressure, experts have long argued existing rules make mergers unnecessarily difficult. The same rulemaking period is expected to revise the eligibility criteria for the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, a $60 million program aimed at first-generation, low-income and minority students pursuing doctoral degrees. Young America’s Foundation sued over the terms of the program, and the administration agreed to change it after the Justice Department found parts of the process unconstitutional in December 2025, though it concluded the program as a whole remains valid.

Title IV eligibility. The department also wants to loosen rules to make it easier for certain for-profit and religious institutions to qualify for state student aid.

In addition to these six issues, the agenda includes plans to formally repeal the Biden Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) loan repayment program, make it easier for colleges to merge or consolidate, and make changes to reduce textbook costs and improve credit transfer policies.

Many other items on the official list were not mentioned in the public department’s summary of important priorities, including technical adjustments to the Impact Assistance Program, changes to Charter School Programs and Equity Assistance Centers, the “Equity in IDEA” law affecting students with disabilities, the Clery Act campus-safety reporting requirements, the law regarding the review of Order-based participation under 520 FERPA and the Student Rights Protection Amendments.

Executive Order Throughline

Four of OCR’s rules in the final rulemaking phase closely follow orders signed by Trump last year: the Title IX rule (1870-AA23) uses the administration’s definition of “sex” under Executive Order 14168, while the two Title VI rules (1870-AA20 and 1870-AA24) rollback the DEI. The Enforcement Procedures Act (1870-AA21) likely reflects the administration’s emphasis on combating antisemitism, as the protection of national origins under Title VI has been the primary basis for OCR’s anti-Semitism-related enforcement actions in recent years. Meanwhile, the licensing law (1840-AD82) and the anti-competitive-barriers law (1840-AE01) formed the backbone of a broader push by administrators to reform the oversight of higher education.

The deadlines listed in the Consolidated Agenda are the department’s stated goals, not guarantees. Regulatory agendas are always in flux, and several items on this year’s list were taken over by 2025.

[^1]: See reginfo.gov; GSA: Consolidated Agenda for Government Policy; EPIC: An Integrated Regulatory Agenda Defined; video explainer.