The U.S. Department of Education announced it will abandon its long-time Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters and relocate to 500 D Street SW in August, cutting operating costs by $4.8 million annually and reducing its footprint by nearly 80%, according to a General Services Administration estimate. The Energy Department will take over the LBJ building lease that would otherwise be mostly vacant. The move is the latest step in the administration’s broader effort to downsize the federal education bureaucracy. It also follows an interagency effort to reshape federal student-loan operations, including a partnership with the Treasury Department to help manage the Education Department’s roughly $1.7 trillion loan portfolio and address defaults. Under the interagency agreement described by the Education and Treasury leadership, Treasury would assume operational responsibility on defaulted student loan debt and assist in returning borrowers to repayment—at a time when about 25% of borrowers are in default, based on the Education Department’s communications in the reporting. Higher-ed leaders and federal watchdogs will be watching both the operational impacts on student aid delivery and the legal fight over whether these changes appropriately preserve the Education Department’s statutory role, especially as unions representing Education Department employees criticize the restructuring as putting education “next on the chopping block.”