The Staggering Costs of Trump’s War on Public Service

During his inaugural address more than 60 years ago, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation he was about to lead to “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” In the decades since, millions of Americans have answered this call by choosing to pursue a career in public service, working in the various departments that make up federal, state, and local government.

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.

Prior to this administration, federal workers faced headwinds. According to the Congressional Budget Office, in 2022, for workers with a master’s degree or higher, federal wages and benefits were less than what the private sector offered (though bachelor’s degrees are on par and those with no degree are paid more than in the private sector). The CBO report also stated that federal wage growth was lower than increases that were occurring in the private sector in the years preceding 2022. The positives reported—such as job security and the ability to telework—have now all been thrown into disarray.

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.

Also in 2022, at Brown (my alma mater and present institution), the same percentage of students reported going into those fields (23 percent in technology, 18 percent for consulting, and 17 percent for finance). Those looking to go into scientific research made up 8 percent, while government and public affairs each made up 2 percent.

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.

The Trump administration’s actions in education will only make this problem worse. Take the decimation of National Institutes of Health training programs—these are grants that provide early career researchers and students with necessary funding to conduct studies. These can be used as a launching pad to apply for more grants and slowly build a research lab. Funding for these grants has been reduced dramatically, and some pipelines have been eliminated as a casualty of the administration’s war on diversity, equity, and inclusion. These grants were specifically designed to make researchers more reflective of America, including people of underrepresented races, from low-income backgrounds, and from rural areas. This has its consequences—a recent Boston Globe poll shows that more than two-thirds of 367 scientists who were surveyed said that they recommended their students look outside of academia for a career.

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.

Changes to the federal loans cap for graduate, medical, and law degrees mean that students may feel staying in consulting or finance is a smarter choice, or they may be locked into these careers for longer. The Department of Education has also recommended that graduate public health and nursing degrees be excluded from the professional degree classification, which may have implications for federal loans. All of these are push factors for people to stay in or move to private industry. Federal loans are already burdensome; needing to take private loans could make that financial pressure even worse—if people choose to even pursue these degrees at all.

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).

While these cuts have had decimating impacts on different sectors, the government has not saved much money at all. While some private companies have been hit hard—Booz Allen Hamilton, for instance, has had all its Treasury contracts canceled in retaliation for a Trump tax leak—others continue to rake in millions in government contracts. Palantir, for instance, secured close to $1 billion in federal contracts last year. Deloitte has secured $100 million in contracts with the Department of Homeland Security. Naturally, defense contractors continue to make up the biggest share.

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.

Ultimately, this contributes to a feeling of malaise—as more and more graduates end up isolated, dealing with a world that looks and feels like the same grey slop. With the decline of scientists working for the public good (and funded on the public dime), we will lose out on discoveries that may lead to new drugs, new cures, and new breakthroughs. The future will arrive all the same; it just won’t be Americans building it anymore—or profiting from it.

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?