It has taken just over a year for this administration to take a hacksaw to the federal workforce. After promising to cause federal workers “trauma,” the Trump administration has fired thousands of career civil servants across dozens of agencies. This has hit science agencies especially hard—Science magazine estimates more than 10,000 federal workers with STEM doctoral degrees left the government in the past year, representing a 14 percent cut of workers with a STEM doctorate in the federal workforce. This adds up to more than 100,000 years of experience lost.
While the cuts the administration has made have been drastic and damaging, they come amid a concerning trend occurring among recent grads of America’s top universities. By and large, America’s top grads are choosing to go into private industry—with finance, consulting, and tech being top picks. At Harvard, polling from 2022 conducted by The Harvard Crimson shows that 58 percent of graduates were set to go into those fields—23 percent in consulting, 18 percent in finance, and 17 percent in technology, respectively (academia made up 9 percent and public service/not-for-profits made up less than 4 percent). This is an increase from 44 percent in a Crimson poll conducted in 2014.
It’s not just private institutions, either. Polling from the Ohio State University from 2023 showed 78 percent of grads indicated they would work in private industry, 13 percent said government, and 8 percent said not-for-profits or private education. The reason for the overwhelming preference for private industry is monetary (the 2014 Crimson poll suggests that most students don’t see themselves in that field 10 years from graduation), but some also say the push to slot graduates into the financial or tech sector is so pervasive that it’s become a default choice. Many young people enter these fields because they perceive they will earn a good enough living that it can buy them more time to figure out what they actually want to do.
I’ve seen this firsthand across my LinkedIn feed. Faced with the worst job market (especially for college grads) since the pandemic, some in public health and former federal workers are pivoting to working in industry-connected lobby and trade groups. I’ve heard from people who advise public health students that many are looking to pivot out of the field or to leverage their skills into insurance or pharmaceuticals.
Not-for-profits have also been hit hard by the administration’s unpredictable cuts. Nearly one-third of not-for-profits reported a delay or pause in funding in 2025, while 21 percent reported losing some funding. More than $425 billion was frozen or canceled in grants for organizations working on different issues across federal agencies—from the Department of Health and Human Services to the National Endowment for the Arts. Haphazard cancellations that end up being blocked in court or reversed are little comfort as they leave not-for-profits anxious and less likely to invest in new programs (and new careers).
Ultimately, private industry, especially nowadays, serves the interests of its shareholders and owners; it has an overarching directive to maximize profits. This is not to say that private industry does not lead to innovation at all, but ultimately end products that do not serve a profit margin will be abandoned. This takes a real hit on the creativity and public service projects—there will be fewer people in the arts, fewer people in the sciences, and fewer people out there serving their communities Morover, the people in those fields will spend their young and productive years worried about making rent, paying down debt, and keeping the jobs that make this possible.
Americans often reminisce about the government of the mid-twentieth century—when it seemed like there was an endless supply of creative thinking: the New Deal programs that paid writers and artists; the public works projects that put people to work in building new infrastructure; the whole-of-government effort to put a man on the moon; the creation of new endowments for humanities, sciences and the arts; among so many other things. The decline of these jobs in society is detrimental to the overall social fabric. If government funding is any guide, the jobs of the future mostly involve the construction of prison camps.
Damage is being done to American public service in a short amount of time that will last generations. The country is losing years of talent and potential to the private sector and to other countries. Some of this may not be able to be reversed; the losses will be great. But that does not mean things cannot be rebuilt and built better. Recovery will require a vision and political will perhaps bolder than Project 2025 itself—a revitalization of public service is possible, but only if we are willing to fight for it. It is perhaps time to put the question to a new generation of Democratic leaders: What you can do for your country?
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