In a recent statement and a series of fireside chats, Education Secretary Linda McMahon repeatedly drew attention to her efforts to move all career, technical and adult education programs from the Department of Education to the Department of Labor and consolidate some as part of the Trump administration’s quest to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.

“I can’t think of a more inefficient system than to have duplication and just one side not knowing what the other is doing,” she said at one conservative policy summit last week. “So let’s consolidate them all in the Department of Labor, where I think they should be. And if we show that this is an incredibly efficient and effective way to manage these programs, it is my hope that Congress will look at that and approve these moves.”

According to ED, many staff members from the Office of Career, Technical and Adult Education are already working under the supervision of the DOL, though the funding for the programs they oversee is still managed by McMahon. Moving that money, which was appropriated by Congress to the Education Department, would require legislative approval. But symbolically, the integration process is under way.

The Trump administration is not the first government body to propose or execute such a merger, however. A handful of states have combined their departments of higher education and workforce development agencies in the hopes of better aligning state budgets, curriculum and grant allocation with the needs of local employers. Missouri, for example, has been working since 2018 to integrate what was the Department of Higher Education and the Division of Workforce Development into a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Inside Higher Ed spoke with the newly fused department’s commissioner, Bennett Boggs, and deputy commissioner, Leroy Wade, to understand how it came to be, what challenges they faced in the process and the benefits they’ve seen as a result.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Take me back and tell me a little bit about what sparked this merger for Missouri.

Wade: There was a realization that we weren’t being as effective as we could be as a state in terms of our economic development. And so Governor Parson, at that point, put together a group called Talent for Tomorrow that looked at what direction do we need to go and what kinds of things do we need to focus on? And then there was an ancillary piece called Best in the Midwest that looked around at our surrounding states to decide, from an economic development, from a workforce perspective, how are we doing?

Unfortunately, what we found was that we weren’t doing really very well. We were toward the bottom in almost everything that we looked at. And so out of that process and a listening tour all around the state to hear what folks wanted and what their perspective was, came two things. One was to try and streamline our Department of Economic Development. The other piece was to look at, how do we change our pipeline system? And that’s what brought the Division of Workforce Development to merge with the Department of Higher Education

Q: How did the process of merging these two institutions work? Was it all led by the governor and the state executive branch, or did it require any legislative backing?

Wade: The governor has the authority to reorganize state government, if you will, at least to a certain extent. So the process started with an executive order laying out what that reorganization would look like. Now, the Legislature has a role in that process. They can’t make changes to it, but they can either vote to accept it or not. But it went through; there was no legislative opposition.

There was some existing statutory language that talked about the Department of Higher Ed, and so there had to be some language changes to adopt the new name of the organization and to reflect some of the structural changes that took place. But it was really all driven by that executive order.

Q: One of the core justifications we’ve heard from the Trump administration for merging the CTE operations at a federal level is to eliminate what they say are duplicate programs. When Missouri combined its agencies, was that one of your motivations as well, and did you find any duplicates to consolidate?

Boggs: What we have found here in Missouri is not so much duplication as an opportunity for coordination. A large part of it was about combining functions that have similar end goals but are not exactly the same program. It’s about asking, how can they be coordinated to be more effective together?

One of the answers to that is leveraging broader expertise. If you bring people and programs together and help broaden the perspective of the work that they’re doing, it allows the organization to move from silos to strategic partnerships.

For example, Missouri is very strong in registered apprenticeships. But it’s not just in the trades. We’ve also developed some really effective programs in education and health care and some other professional industries. Part of that is because we’ve been able now to coordinate with local workforce boards, local regional employers and then the two- and four-year institutions, particularly regional ones. Before, these three groups may have been unintentionally competing because they weren’t that aware of each other, but now by working together they can be a funding stream. They can bring resources together to help strengthen and accelerate workforce development that would not have happened if they kept operating separately.

It also just strengthens our communications and helps us as a department talk about higher education in terms of, how does this make life better for Missourians? And that’s a better, healthier conversation to be having.

Q: Despite the shared end goal, there had to be times where there was internal conflict in trying to streamline things. For example, if both an apprenticeship program and a health-care school are training hospital technicians, I can imagine they’re each trying to fill their own seats. So what were some of the challenges you faced in the merger process and how did you overcome them?

Boggs: We know in Missouri, 65 percent of all jobs currently require education or training past high school, and that number is only expected to grow. Of that, 35 percent would be an associate degree or some certification, and 30 percent would be a bachelor’s degree and above. So this is a statewide effort to create pathways for all Missourians—so this is not either-or, it’s yes-and.

Why can’t a student have an internship or a work-based learning experience while in a postsecondary institution? And so part of those regional partnerships is that they help us think about things like that. They’re not only preparing students for the current job but asking, how do we get them on a pathway to be ready for the next one?

One of the challenges in this is understanding that different sections of our department work in different time frames. For example, we run 21 job centers in the state, and when folks come in the door there, they need a job to pay the rent next week. We also have different parts of the department that are approving academic programs in a way that might not really take off for three to five years. It’s not only a difference in pace but also culture and lingo. We just have to be aware of each other and learn.

The other challenge is potential for misalignment related to policies, data and physical infrastructure. This really hits home in terms of our planning and budget folks. We now have an array of state and federal programs that support Missourians in paying for education, whether that’s state-funded financial aid or federal [Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act] funds. These separate funding streams have different requirements, different reporting structures and eligibility criteria, so our staff then has to be able to think quickly, know about and pivot between multiple particular funding streams.

Q: We’ve also heard critics of the merger at the federal level suggest that there may be barriers in statute that make it difficult to merge or consolidate various programs and grants. Did you experience any difficulties legally when merging your two agencies?

Boggs: We didn’t encounter any legal hurdles, but as I was mentioning earlier, understanding the differences in the federal and state funding streams and the requirements and the structures and the eligibility requirements, those kinds of things had to get worked through.

Q: So would you say it was less about trying to change the existing rules and regulations for various programs and more trying to understand those stipulations in order to use the funding in a more strategic, collaborative way?

Boggs: I think that’s pretty accurate. It’s about keeping the similar end goal in mind, and then asking, what funds can be used to help advance to that shared goal?

Q: All challenges aside, over all, has this merger positively affected Missouri’s higher ed and workforce development landscape? And, if so, how?

Boggs: Absolutely. It’s changed the tone and the conversation statewide in terms of postsecondary education being part of economic and community development. It has pulled in strategic partners, from job centers, regional workforce boards, chambers of commerce and regional universities to have really interesting gatherings and talk about where they need to grow. And it makes for a better conversation about the cutting-edge research our flagship institution does. Over all, it helps us as a state have a better, more comprehensive conversation about learning and workforce development.

Q: Has the Trump administration reached out to you in an effort to learn from Missouri’s experiences in merging these two departments?

Boggs: No, but if they wanted to contact us, we’d be happy to assist however we could.

Q: Do you think there’s an opportunity for the federal government to learn from both the challenges and the successes that you have experienced at the state level?

Boggs: You know there’s a famous quote from Louis Brandeis that says, “States are the laboratories of democracy.”

I wouldn’t pretend to know what the federal government can take away from Missouri. They are operating at a much more complicated level, with many more components in play. But certainly in Missouri, we’ve had a good experience doing this, and we’re still discovering new areas for improvement all the time.

In fact, we’ve got a technical cleanup bill we’re proposing this upcoming legislative session of just small bits and pieces in the state statutes from before the merger that still need to be addressed. Part of what helped us out, though, is data—the integrating of some of the disparate data systems into now a more comprehensive data group, and that’s helping us statewide with better policymaking.