Education Department Contracts Axed Across the Country Without Reason as DOGE Barrels On: 'We're Completely Crippled'

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent this week axing up to 169 government contracts that fund the Education Department's Institute for Education Sciences (IES).

"We're completely crippled," one IES employee told the Washington Post. "It really prevents us from serving the mission we thought we were carrying out."

That mission is collecting, analyzing and publishing data about the condition of America's education system and using it to reform and strengthen curriculums across the nation. The IES also reviews and reports on education around the globe.

One of the terminated contracts funded interpreting higher education data that tracked enrollment and financial aid. While the raw data will still be collected, WaPo reported the studies that synthesized and made the data digestible for experts are gone, making it more difficult to understand how students are using financial aid and to identify barriers to higher education.

Additionally, DOGE's young staffers fired dozens of employees. In light of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, department heads can hire no more than one employee for every four that are let go moving forward.

"The inmates are running the asylum, and the goal is chaos and the goal is destruction. We've never seen anything like this in our lifetime," Arne Duncan, a former education secretary during the Obama administration, told WaPo.