Plans to close the U.S. Department of Education face the need for ongoing federal student loan administration. After a reduction in force cut the department’s staff by about half, the student loan office is expanding hiring. The Office of Federal Student Aid is adding roughly 380 new workers, and internal materials indicate it has 731 full-time equivalent staff, about half of the prior level. The office states it needs to hire an additional 334 full-time equivalent positions to meet targets. It has already hired 52 workers since September. The office manages communications with millions of borrowers, repayment plans, and the FAFSA process.
"The Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) is the central nervous system of the nation's $1.7 trillion student loan portfolio. It manages everything from communications with the nation's 43 million borrowers to repayment plans to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). In April, FSA held an internal all-staff meeting in which employees were told that FSA has 731 full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) roughly half the staff it had prior to the current Trump administration (1,440) and that it "needs to hire an additional 334 FTEs to meet our target.""
"The documents also show FSA has already hired 52 new workers since September. "What these job postings confirm is what we've known all along: Our jobs matter," says Rachel Gittleman, a former FSA staffer who is now president of AFGE Local 252, which represents department employees. "And [our jobs] are needed in order for our federal student loan system to function adequately for borrowers.""
"When asked to explain the hiring in light of last year's mass firings, Ellen Keast, the department's press secretary for higher education, responded: "Returning education to the states and breaking up the federal education bureaucracy does not mean that critical programs won't continue." Keast says none of these new FSA hires are former employees returning to their old jobs."
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