Assessing the Damage After the Education Department’s Mass Layoffs
Posted by Inside Higher Ed on March 18, 2025
The Trump administration’s deep cuts at the department hit some offices harder than others, but the effects will likely be felt by students, families and institutions across the country.
The Trump administration fired nearly half of the Education Department’s roughly 4,100 employees, leaving the agency with a skeletal staff of about 2,183. Now, a day later, the scope and impact of those layoffs are beginning to take shape.
The nation’s largest education research agency went from roughly 100 employees to about five, according to a laid-off employee, crippling the government’s capacity to inform education policy. The Office of Federal Student Aid lost hundreds of career staffers, undermining oversight of student loan practices, the maintenance of the federal financial aid system and the authorization of new programs. And the Office for Civil Rights, which fields thousands of student and educator complaints about discrimination and harassment each year, is now down to just five regional offices.
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