Young People Who Aspired To Government Service Dismayed By Trump Ending The Federal Fellows Program

A young economist who had uprooted her life for civil service. A fierce housing advocate terminated just before buying her first home. A semifinalist whose dreams were dashed before they materialized.

For decades, the Presidential Management Fellows program was seen as a building block for the civil service with the expectation that the few who earned the position would one day become leaders in the federal workforce. Now the road ahead is uncertain. Hundreds of the fellows have been terminated or placed on administrative leave amid a nationwide slashing of the federal workforce .

One of President Donald Trump's executive orders ended the program , which was created in 1978 to entice highly qualified workers with advanced degrees to join the federal government.

Trump's Republican administration had ordered agencies to lay off nearly all probationary employees, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of workers in one fell swoop. That included recent classes of the fellows program, which has a two-year probationary period.

Fellows had persevered through an intense selection process that included multiple tests and evaluations as well as a blind interview. The agency website said about 10 of applicants are accepted, although that number has been recently as low as just 3.