Updated at 8:30 p.m., March 11
The Education Department laid off “nearly 50 percent” of its more than 4,100 employees Tuesday evening, according to four sources inside the agency who were told about the plans and an agency news release.
Congressional Democrats quickly condemned the massive personnel cuts—the largest in the department’s history—while Republicans and conservative groups said they were long overdue. The union representing department staffers pledged to fight the reductions.
It’s not yet clear what specific departments or positions were affected. The department previously offered employees buyouts to cut down the workforce. (The goal to reduce staff by 50 percent includes prior reductions.) Those affected will receive at least 90 days’ severance and will have 10 days to transfer their job duties to another staffer or political appointee, according to a longtime staffer with inside knowledge of the reduction-in-force details.
The department said in its announcement that the employees will be placed on administrative leave, starting March 21, and that core programs such as distributing student loans and Pell Grants will continue.
“Today’s reduction in force reflects the Department of Education’s commitment to efficiency, accountability, and ensuring that resources are directed where they matter most: to students, parents, and teachers,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”
McMahon has been critical of the department, supporting President Trump’s plan to shutter the agency she now runs. Shortly after taking office last week, she told department staff to prepare for a “momentous final mission” to eliminate “bureaucratic bloat” and return education to the states. Republicans have sought for decades to get rid of the 45-year-old agency, arguing it was unconstitutional and an example of federal bloat and excess.
The Washington Post reported that 1,315 employees would lose their jobs, in addition to the roughly 600 who took the buyouts. The reductions will bring the total workforce down to fewer than 2,200.
The department’s D.C. offices will be closed Wednesday for “security reasons,” according to an email obtained by Inside Higher Ed. The email instructed department staff to take their laptops home with them on Tuesday in order to telework Wednesday, and said they would “not be permitted in any ED facility on Wednesday, March 12th, for any reason.”
Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents over 2,800 workers at the Department of Education, pledged to fight the cuts in a statement released Tuesday evening. Smith said that the Trump administration “has no respect for the thousands of workers who have dedicated their careers to serve their fellow Americans.”
“We will not stand idly by while this regime pulls the wool over the eyes of the American people,” Smith added. “We will state the facts. Every employee at the U.S. Department of Education lives in your communities—we are your neighbors, your friends, your family. And we have spent our careers supporting services that you rely on.”
The expected cuts are part of a governmentwide strategy to reduce the federal workforce. All federal agency officials were told last month to start preparing for a “large scale reduction in force” and to eliminate all “non-statutorily mandated functions.”
While the government layoffs are far-reaching, Trump has frequently targeted the Education Department for deep cuts. But shutting down the agency, as he wants to do, would require congressional action—a step many experts say is unlikely. Even if they don’t abolish it altogether, Trump and McMahon can make deep cuts to the agency.
Trump had planned to sign an executive order last week directing McMahon to “take all necessary steps” to return authority over education to the states and facilitate closure of the Department of Education “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law,” according to draft text reviewed by Inside Higher Ed. While the order hasn’t been signed, Tuesday’s staffing reductions show such a move might be just a formality.
Higher education groups and advocates have warned for months that cutting staff and programs at the department would be catastrophic for institutions and students. State higher education officials, university administrators, nonprofit advocacy groups and students depend on the Education Department to oversee federal student aid, manage the student loan portfolio, investigate civil rights complaints and allocate billions of dollars in institutional aid, among other operations. The department, which has an $80 billion discretionary budget, issues about $100 billion in student loans every year and more than $30 billion in Pell Grants.
The cuts will likely impact most agencies and offices in the department, including the Office of Federal Student Aid, sources say. Within FSA, the cuts will be most severe among teams that work directly on policy and higher education oversight, including the Ombudsman Office, which investigates complaints into student loan practices and financial aid.
Staffers at the Education Department have been anticipating the reduction in force for the past week. Last Tuesday, department leaders called a meeting to discuss the impending layoffs but canceled at the last minute. Meanwhile, staff have been awaiting the executive order to close down the department since last Wednesday.
“Everyone’s ready,” one exhausted staffer told Inside Higher Ed.
Other federal agencies have started to lay off thousands of employees via a planned reduction in force. At the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump expects 65 percent of the workforce to go, according to Government Executive, a trade publication tracking the layoffs. Last week, the Veterans Affairs Department said it was laying off 80,000 people.
Reckless or Necessary?
Former education secretary John King Jr., who served during the Obama administration, said last week, when the cuts were just rumors, that the impact will be significant, echoing several other higher education experts who weighed in Tuesday night.
“You’ve got dedicated civil servants, many of whom are former teachers and principals who are working at the department because they want to help contribute to the country’s future,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “Going through that sort of tumultuous process will likely cause us to lose really talented people who want to serve the country. That’s shameful and deeply distressing.”
King said that though there are “of course” programs that could be improved, strengthened and made more efficient, that’s not what the Trump administration is trying to do.
“They are not proposing thoughtful, surgical measures to improve the activities of the department. They are acting with a meat cleaver, or maybe more accurately, just swinging an ax wildly around,” he said.
American Council on Education president Ted Mitchell said in a statement that he was “deeply alarmed” at the staffing reductions and called on the administration and Congress to reverse the decision.
“This move puts the effectiveness of those programs at risk, causes nothing but chaos and confusion, and in the long run jeopardizes the futures of the millions of students those programs serve,” he said.
Liberal think tanks and advocacy organizations also decried the cuts, along with congressional Democrats.
Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington State who serves as the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the cuts amount to taking a wrecking ball to the Education Department.
“When you fire the people who hold predatory for-profit colleges accountable and who help students get financial aid, it is students who pay the price for years to come,” Murray said.
Amy Laitinen, senior director of higher education at New America, a left-leaning think tank, noted that the Department of Education is already the smallest cabinet agency.
“Who will process FAFSAs to help students afford college? … [And] who will protect students from predatory schools that happily take students’ loans and provide them with worthless credentials?” she asked in an email to Inside Higher Ed. “It’s wild and reckless and puts our educational system—the heart of a functioning democracy—at risk.”
But conservative advocacy groups and congressional Republicans said the cuts are an encouraging and necessary step and repeatedly noted that key functions such as distributing funds to K-12 schools and college students will continue. (Other experts have questioned whether that will be possible with the staffing reductions.)
Dr. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, the top Republican on the Senate education committee, posted on the social media that “this action is aimed at fulfilling the admin’s goal of addressing redundancy and inefficiency in the federal government.”
Lindsey Burke, director for the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, and Jonathan Butcher, a senior research fellow, said in a joint statement that the staffing reductions were “long overdue” and will give more decision-making authority to state and local education officials.
“Federal officials say the reductions will not interfere with the distribution of federal student aid or K-12 spending for children in low-income areas or students with special needs,” Burke and Butcher said. ”Ultimately, Americans will see that the Department of Education is not necessary for students to succeed, and the entire agency should be eliminated.”