President Donald Trump has directed the interim leader of the U.S. Department of Education’s federal student aid office to serve as acting secretary of education until the U.S. Senate confirms his pick for the role.
Denise Carter will lead the department in the early days of the new administration until the Senate confirms Linda McMahon—the former WWE CEO and former U.S. Small Business Administration leader—to the role. McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearing hasn’t yet been scheduled.
Joining McMahon in leadership of the department will be Penny Schwinn, the former Tennessee education commissioner whom Trump has tapped as deputy education secretary.
Carter’s designation as acting secretary was among more than 30 similar appointments Trump made on his first day shortly after taking the oath of office. After two speeches at the U.S. Capitol, Trump sat down to sign a series of actions that officially began his second term. Acting department leaders must come from within the agency they’re leading and can generally serve up to 210 days under federal law.
Carter has served as the federal student aid office’s acting chief operating officer since July 2024. Before that, she served a brief stint as principal deputy chief operating officer for student aid, moving into that role after the department, under former Secretary Miguel Cardona, came under fire for its bungled update of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, and student aid director Richard Cordray stepped down.
Before joining the student aid office, Carter served as acting assistant secretary and chief financial officer in the Education Department’s office of finance and operations, according to an agency biography.
The student aid team within the Education Department handles billions of dollars in student financial aid and loans. Federal Student Aid provided $121 billion in federal student grants, loans, and work-study funds to nearly 10 million students at approximately 5,400 colleges and career schools during fiscal year 2024, according to the department. At the end of the same fiscal year, there were more than 45 million borrowers holding roughly $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.
As the Biden administration’s attempts at expansive student debt relief were dashed by legal challenges—though the administration still forgave loans for millions of borrowers—Carter led programming to provide resources and support for borrowers who resumed loan repayments after a three-year pause.
The department was, just days ahead of Trump’s inauguration, outlining ways to keep borrowers from defaulting on their loans under the new administration, according to an NBC report. For the first time in years, those who fail to make payments on their debt can face wage garnishment.
Before joining the Education Department, Carter worked in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as deputy assistant secretary for human resources and as chief human capital officer. She was responsible for services for that agency’s staff of more than 90,000, according to her biography.
