President Donald Trump signed a presidential action to halt all hiring of federal civilian employees on Jan. 20. The freeze will last 90 days, or until the United States Department of Government Efficiency Service, led by Elon Musk, decides otherwise. Chaos and confusion spread among federal workers after the announcement, including the United States Agency for International Development. Trump has threatened to shut down USAID, which is impacted by the freeze. College students and those graduating in 2025, have been unable to apply to government internships and jobs.
College junior Tommy Sear wanted to apply for a 2025 summer internship at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. Sear is majoring in history and education. In an interview with Trill Mag, he informed that when he went to the job website, the posting no longer accepted applications. He reached out to the hiring manager for an explanation. Sear said he never got a response. He learned later that the museum had to freeze all hiring under Trump’s new policy.
To Sear, it was “pretty disappointing” not to get professional experience since the internship “seemed like a pretty good fit.” He added that he disagrees with any choice to attack Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hiring practices in the federal government during the freeze.
In general, for a lot of students and young people or anyone that’s trying to work in the federal government, the Smithsonian not being able to provide jobs is going to do a lot more harm than it is good. I don’t see how this freeze is going to be good for a lot of people.
Tommy Sear, 2025
What Has Been Going On
Trump instituted a hiring freeze on all civilian federal positions on Jan. 20. This decision is one aspect of a multi-part plan to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Senior Trump officials have said the plan would save billions of dollars in annual spending. Trump appointed Elon Musk to lead the DOGE on Nov. 12, 2024, giving him broad powers and access to executive-decision making. Trump and Musk have been using their positions to enforce this large-scale plan.
One part of the plan to limit the federal workforce is the “Fork in the Road” initiative. The Office of Personal Management sent an email about the initiative on Jan. 28 to two million federal employees, offering them a choice to formally resign. According to reporting from the Associated Press, the initiative mirrored Musk’s offer to X employees in 2022.
While a federal judge delayed the offer on Monday, the hiring freeze remains in effect.
USAID is also a federal agency gravely impacted by the hiring freeze, with workers in Washington D.C. and abroad. Musk said in a live session on X Spaces, that he and Trump had spoken and agreed that USAID needed to be “shut down.”
The Trump administration announced his intention to put thousands of USAID workers on administrative leave and continue the pause on all U.S. foreign aid funding on Feb. 4. While a court temporarily blocked this decision, USAID workers were still unable to access their offices and turned away from the building, which already had the USAID sign removed, according to reporting from ABC News.
The True Costly Impact
Despite Trump’s claims that slashing the workforce would save money, a report from the Government Accountability Office found that previous hiring freezes under the Carter and Reagan administrations were ineffective in decreasing spending.
The GAO report said that the previous freezes saw “agencies compensating for personnel shortages by using contractors … costing taxpayers up to 60% more than the cost of using federal employees for the same work.” The GAO also did not find “either gross savings in salaries and benefits or offsetting costs” to a hiring freeze.
In an interview with the online news outlet Government Executive, Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, said that the hiring freeze would lead to negative outcomes. One of which would be a decline in government functionality and public responsiveness.
This order could leave agencies with hiring gaps in critical areas, and it will deter the talented workers needed for a well-functioning government, especially those with specialized skills.
Max Stier, Government Executive, 2025
Sophomore Serene Sindayiganza told Trill that “it is alarming” that so many federal positions are being removed. She said this is especially true in terms of how it will consequently harm public health initiatives and foreign aid. The reliability of federal agencies may be put at risk because of the freeze and resignations of government employees.
With masses of qualified and experienced employees being removed from office at the same time, it is daunting to think about how many pitfalls there will be within our federal agencies.
Serene Sindayiganza, 2025
Many students and soon-to-be college graduates want to work for the federal government in some capacity. Unfortunately, they are already seeing that path disappear. Federal agencies and bodies have had to rescind internship, fellowship and job offers, and even halt interview processes, in the fallout of the freeze.
Senior Emme Richards has decided to go into the publishing industry after graduation. Still, Richards told Trill that she and her friends – many of whom want to enter public service – are “freaking out” about the hiring freeze.
It’s been really unfortunate. For me personally, I have been seeing jobs disappear off of the USA Jobs site constantly. I am a senior, so that’s incredibly unfortunate … It’s very anxiety-inducing seeing the lack of opportunities. It’s been a real hardship.
Emme Richards, 2025
Targeting USAID Is ‘Problematic’
Richards said that she has been following closely the DOGE and the attacks on USAID from Musk, Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. She added that it is “frustrating” that would-be future employees may not be able to do the “important work” of the agency any longer.
Richards said that her concerns are similar to Stier. They are related to long-term government functionality. She said it will be “pretty difficult” to build up the federal sector again after the hiring freeze.
I know a lot of people who lost their jobs – their federal jobs – and are now moving into the private sector, which is often better paid. So I would be really curious to see after all of this, what the recovery would look like, because I would anticipate that people wouldn’t be as willing to move back into the federal sector, which could be a big blow in terms of the functionality of the federal government.
Richards, 2025
Sindayiganza expressed that considering the “attacks” on USAID specifically, is “problematic” because of the “integral role” it plays in humanitarian aid globally. It will be increasingly difficult for many young people who want to serve in an international capacity, to do so.
I question where the morals of those in power lie, and what good they see coming out of attacking USAID.
Sindayiganza, 2025
