It was a whirlwind week for the Ministry of Education, with some professional employees plagued by its bleak, uncertain future.
On Monday, the Senate confirmed Linda McMahon as the new education secretary and soon after she released a memorandum that announced the “final mission” of department personnel: “Eliminate bureaucratic inflation in the Department of Education.”
The next day, department leaders planned a meeting to announce a significant reduction in effect, which currently staff said includes layoffs of nearly 50% of the workforce, but according to department employees, the meeting was cancelled.
Then, on Wednesday, media introduced the administration’s sources, reporting that President Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday to repeal the education department and make crazy staff scramble to prepare.
When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced on X on Thursday morning that Trump would not sign the order that day, one staff member said it felt like cruel misleading.
“It definitely feels like a whip,” they said. “The people today prepare themselves for today…Everyone seems ready to take away the band-aid, and delay feels like a tormenting game.”
Several current department employees who spoke with Internal Advanced ED In the context and anonymity, the unrest and uncertainty within the department were scrambled to prepare for the dissolution of the office, even if the government’s plans and timetable were unclear.
A current employee told Internal Advanced ED McMahon’s memo declared that the government’s plan to reduce the size of the department was “insult and confrontation.”
“The idea that we should be honored to perform this ‘final mission’ is ridiculous,” they said. “It’s basically saying, ‘You should thank us for firing you.'”
A professional employee who has worked in the department for more than a decade said most employees are anxiously waiting for another shoe to fall off. They say anger and indignation have turned into heartbreak over the past few weeks.
“The reality is sinking everywhere…people are very frustrated,” they said. “But the goal of working to promote this administration may actually be worse than not having a job.”
“Cut and burn”
Trump advocates eliminating the 45-year-old education sector since the early stages of the campaign. When he nominated McMahon as secretary, he said he wanted her to “get herself out of work.” Still, many department employees were surprised to see sudden escalation.
Long-term staff said they expect some serious changes in the department when Trump opens. But the speed and wantonness of abolishing this move surprised them.
“I’m foolishly believing that they’ll try to take a research approach to consult experienced professional staff with institutional knowledge and expertise,” they said. “Instead, it’s slash and burning.”
Last week, the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management directed all federal agencies to prepare for “massive reductions, effective, massive reductions” and removed “non-business mandate functions,” which could be a plan for the Trump administration to reduce as much of the overall number of education departments as possible without Congress’ approval.
Trump’s upcoming executive order, Internal Advanced EDincluding a two-section guide to end the department’s activities and several other guides. James Kvaal, who was formerly the education secretary of President Joe Biden, said there was no plan to reveal and worry.
“[The document] The Trump administration reflects in some factors what they are trying to do, even what they are trying to do, even the differences between certain factors. ” Kwar said.
Department staff are concerned about the government’s implementation of its ambitious spending cuts. An employee who talks to him Internal Advanced ED He was placed on administrative leave last month and said their experience was “chaotic and accidental.” Staff said cuts, contracts and staff cuts were largely left to a small number of young government efficiency employees whose approach was “like throwing pasta on the wall to understand what they could escape.”
They say that if so far the Trump administration’s cuts in the department show how they will handle the department’s plans, it could exacerbate the impact on students and educational institutions.
“No one will know what’s going on, and that means zero responsibility,” they said. “It’s going to be a mess.”
Doge has canceled hundreds of millions of dollars in department contracts, including some essential for free application for federal student aid. Sources within the department say hundreds of federal student aid workers are either acquired or on leave.
Current sector employees specializing in higher education say they are concerned that the closure of the sector or the major relief that contributes to the sector will have a devastating impact on the industry, especially affordability and access.
“Even on who we are going to college, the progress we have made can cause huge setbacks,” they said. “Universities are so high alert in every way…it’s a wholesale attack on the industry.”
Even under Biden’s leadership, overall, the department, especially the Office of Student Aid, is a problem he said contributed to the launch of the new FAFSA last year. He added that further reductions could enable institutions to fulfill important responsibilities such as student loans and aid spending.
“The department has been less even before these cuts, so it’s hard to run the program smoothly and bring the benefits students need,” he said. “If hundreds of people actually leave the FSA, this could put our progress at FAFSA at risk and disrupt our efforts to prevent student loan defaults. If nothing else, asking senior executives to focus on dragging their employees out and preparing for legislation that never comes out is a real distraction.”
Kvaal and current employees are concerned that when the Trump Administration releases specific plans to assign the department’s responsibilities, they will welcome the private sector to manage services such as student loans and financial aid.
“The long-term goal here seems to be to privatize the FSA, like they do with social security,” one employee said. “It’s a mess, waiting to happen, and it will take more than four years. The damage can be huge in the meantime.”
