Jason Cottrell
So the department was created in 79 under the under the Jimmy Carter, okay, kind of presidency, you know, his, his four years everybody, I think Republicans have said for years that they wanted to get rid of the agency, and the they have kind of created this message that, you know, the Department of Education has failed because the nation students are failing. We’re not, you know, we’re actually going fairly well. You know, we could do better. I mean, the problem is that was, you need to take, take some of that funding and give it to education. You know, pay, pay for more teachers.

Heather Shea
Welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators, I’m your host, Heather. Shea in today’s episode, we are diving into the complexities of working in a federal agency and what happens when the political landscape shifts. I’m joined by my friend Jason Cottrell, who has spent the past nine plus years at the US Department of Education, navigating transitions across administrations and shaping policies that impact higher ed. Last month, he was among the 1300 employees laid off by the department, and today, we’re going to discuss his journey into federal service, what these layoffs mean for higher ed, and what’s next for him and for the larger landscape. Student Affairs NOW is a premier podcast and learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope you’ll find these conversations make a contribution to the field and are restorative to the profession. We release our regular episodes every week on Wednesdays, and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcasts. We also have a brand new limited series current campus context, where we break down the latest news shaping higher ed catch new episodes every Friday. Wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was sponsored by Evolve. Evolve helps senior leaders release fear, gain courage and take action for transformational leadership through a personalized cohort based virtual learning experience. Today’s episode is also sponsored by Huron. Huron educational and research experts help institutions transform their strategy, operations, technology and culture to foster innovation, financial health and student success. As I mentioned, I am your host for today’s episode, Heather, Shea. My pronouns are she, her and hers, and I am broadcasting from the ancestral, traditional and contemporary lands of the Anishinaabe, three fires, confederacy of Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples, otherwise known as East Lansing, Michigan, home of Michigan State University where I work. All right, so let’s get into the conversation. I am so excited to introduce my friend, Dr Jason Cottrell. We have known each other through a CPA. I don’t remember exactly. Was it 2010 about that? I think so, yeah, it’s

Heather Shea
been, it’s been a minute. Anyway, we caught up last month in actually, now it’s April, in mid February, just as the chaos in the federal government was starting to unfold. And then we chatted again last month when the news broke that the Department of Education was being gutted. I am so grateful for your service, Jason and for also your willingness to join this episode, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, why don’t we start with you give us a little bit of a fuller introduction, um, and then, what was your role within the Department of Education and what led you to want to work there? We’ll start there.

Jason Cottrell
Sure. So my name is Jason Cottrell. I My pronouns are he, him, his. I am just outside of DC in Rockville, Maryland. And I worked for the Department of Education for like you said, nine plus years. It was actually nine years to the day that I was actually so called rift I’ve been placed on administrative leave until June 9, so technically, I’m getting paid until till that point. And so as of today, I am, you know, no longer working for the Department. And so I have a little bit of leeway to actually talk about a little bit what about what I’ve done. The big thing is, for the past eight years, or my first eight years, I guess, I was the lead Research Analyst in the Office of post secondary education, where I worked with the nation’s HBCUs tccu and minority serving institutions, as well as our FC programs or tips it programs, and I supported them through what’s called the eligibility process. And so I ensured that those MSIS, our HSIs, our anapesis, our Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian institutions, predominantly black institutions that they met the requirements to be deemed eligible for the grants that they were seeking in terms of being eligible for those capacity building programs. I also worked for the one their performance reports, and did all of their performance report processing and did the IT systems for. For the office of post secondary education, and really kind of ensured that those programs met the requirements for cyber security, that the aprs were processed in terms of quality data was coming in, and that we were requesting data that wasn’t over overly burdensome to the institution. And up until November of last year, that’s, that’s kind of what I did. That was kind of the big piece of it. I was promoted in November to Data Coordinator for the office of post secondary education, and at that point, I was responsible for a lot more than just the institutional service grants, and so I now was taking over responsibility to ensure data quality, kind of across Ope, and that the data governance for the office of post secondary education was something that we were working towards as part of what’s called the Evidence Act. And the Evidence Act was established in or passed in 2018 I believe in the each agency has responsibilities for ensuring that the data that was coming in to the agency was of high quality that we were being, you know, very transparent in terms of the data that that we were collecting and that we were putting that data out on data.gov which is the kind of platform that’s used for all agencies to essentially show these are the data that we’re collecting, and this is the data that we have. And you know, if you need it, you can use it and do analyzes and those types of things. And so I took that roll over in November of 2024 and was super excited. Was waiting to kind of get some stuff kind of rolling with the new administration coming in and really being able to kind of do some great things with the data that post secondary education really kind of needed. And that was that was kind of my role. Up until March, I was excited about being able to serve the public, and that’s really the biggest reason that I went into working for the Department. I spent my first 16 years as a professional working on college campuses, doing a lot of great different things, working with our orientation programs at North Carolina Central University at VCU. You know, I’d worked in financial aid for a number of years, working student life at a community college, and worked in learning support, and was really, you know, a student affairs practitioner at heart. I came back to DC. My I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley in rural Virginia. And you know, my my parents and my grandparents were all public servants in some capacity, be it is veterans. My grandfather was a member of the Secret Service. He helped install the communication systems at Mount Weather, which is just outside of of DC and Virginia. So there was ever anything that were to happen, you know, that’s where the President would go, is to Mount Weather. And you know that commitment towards public service, and you know, my parents, my grandparents, they didn’t go to college. You know, I, you know, was a first generation college student. And at the same time, you know, there is, there’s a history of public service, especially as a Virginian and a UVA graduate, you know, you are committed to being a public servant in this in this area. And I’ve always believed that, you know, education is, is the ultimate public service, you know, that’s really something where you can kind of give back. And so when we came back to to the DC area, you know, and I was applying for jobs, you know, I was looking at the opportunities. I always joked that I was going to be the secretary of education one day, and and lo and behold, I get a job at the department, and super excited when I landed the job. You know, it was something that you know, when you grow up in the northern Virginia, DC, Maryland area, you always kind of learn that, you know, if you ever want a job with stability, supposedly, yeah, this was the one. And, you know, you work for the federal government, and you would have a job for, you know, as long as you want it. And you know, I, I landed this job because of the alignment that it had with my experience as well as my education. And, you know, as I was completing my dissertation in the fall of 2015 I was applying for these jobs here in the DC area, and my dissertation really aligned with, you know, institutional capacity and capacity building. And so the opportunity presented itself. I accepted the job. Job, you know. And I was super excited every day to get up and go into DC, you know, it. People always ask what it was like to work for the department, and really working for the government. Always explained it. It’s really magical, you know, it’s, you know, my very first day, you know, I coming out of the metro onto Maryland Avenue at L’Enfant Plaza, and the first thing you see is you come up those escalators, and you come out to this blue sky, and there is the US Capitol standing right there in front of you. And you know, there’s nothing more magical than, you know, seeing the seat of our government right there, you know, and it’s just, it’s a beautiful sight. And, you know, I was excited every day. You know, the pandemic hit. And, you know, I started working on pandemic relief efforts, you know, to provide institutions with funding. You know, we were working, you know, 5060, hours a week to get money out the door to institutions because they needed it. And, you know, so, you know, when we were working from home, just like everybody else was, to try to get, you know, funding out, I was excited to get, you know, be able to go back into the office. Once we were able to, I would go in one to two days a week. And, you know, I would I started getting off at a different metro stop so that I could walk across the National Mall, you know? And just, you know, it’s, it’s, there’s a sight to be seen. You know, you’ve got the Washington Monument on one side, the the Capitol on the other. You’re walking past the museums, and you know, you’re seeing the tourists, and you know they’re coming in to to see the city. And it’s just, it really is a great experience. And, you know, those are things that, to me, were reasons that I really wanted to be able to to work for the government and transition into a role, you know, in education that I described as being able to impact,

Jason Cottrell
you know, every student in the nation, in some, in some way, you know, you were, you really did have an impact on on their lives and on the institutions of higher ed. And, you know, I, I chaired the ACPA Convention in 2022 and, you know, my opening remarks, you know, I described as being able to have the opportunity from eliskovic, Alaska all the way down to the Virgin Islands, and from North Carolina Central University to Guam and you know, you have these opportunities to really just impact so many people’s lives and be able to support the education system in our nation. And that was something that I was always excited about. And you know, I cherished every moment. And you know, last Friday, when I went to clean out my office, you know, somebody asked me, is, you know, what do you think? What are you thinking about right now? Is, I did nine years of great work for this nation, and at the end of the day, I wouldn’t change a moment of it. And you know, that was, that was what was important and why I transitioned to that role, and that being said, you know, when I first started, I always said, I’ll do this for like, 10 years and then go back to a college campus. And, you know, here we are nine plus years later, and you know, I’m now job searching to go back to a college campus. And, you know, not on my own accord, because I think I probably would have stuck around and done this for, you know, till retirement and but at the same time, you know, if, if now is the time for me to move on, it’s time for me to move on. So Well,

Heather Shea
I love hearing that story and what drew you in, because I do think that those of us who don’t work in federal agencies or in federal service roles like have this different perspective, right? Because our engagement with the Department of Education has is layered to say that. But I am really curious, because I do think in the in the past, you know, however many days we as a as a country have been like, Well, what do all these federal agencies do? And I would love for you to give us an overview of what the Department of Education does, and, maybe more importantly, what it doesn’t do, because I think that’s part of the narrative, right? And then, you know, tell me a little bit about your day to day, your day to day, work.

Jason Cottrell
Sure, sure. The big thing allows. I’ll start with what we don’t do. We don’t, we don’t control curriculum. We don’t, or should, they don’t control curriculum. They don’t really get into what goes on in especially the K 12 system, they don’t really do what most people think they do. And you know, all that is left up already to the States and to the local. You know, the local entities. You know what? What the department was founded on is, you know, and I’ll never forget being in my my first few months at the department, and it was 2016, Early 2016 and so you we were going into, you know, really kind of ramping up election season at that point, and after, after Hillary lost, you know, I remember kind of the feeling within the department of this transition that’s going to happen, and the idea that folks were just reminding us, you know, the Department of Education is a civil rights agency, yeah, and at the end of the day, that’s, that’s really what the focus is, is, you know, ensuring that students have an equitable chance at learning, and that every student has access to a a a high quality education in the United States. And you know, the the department does is not responsible for the scores that are coming out, you know. And so when people talk about the The Nation’s Report Card, you know, the ultimately, those report cards are up to the states and your local entities, you know. And that’s that is where you know folks should be directing their concerns. Is if you know, if an if your local school is not succeeding, that’s where you need to be focused on making sure that they do. And you know that means, you know, increasing funding in or decreasing class sizes, those types of things. You know what, what the Department of Education is responsible for. You know, the largest piece is grant making and financial aid. You know, then financial aid is really the biggest, you know, Pell grants and, you know, student loans, all of those things are, are the number one thing that the Department of Education does, the title one funding and Federal Student Aid, getting that money out, idea after that, and then you start getting into some of the other pieces of the department. And so for me, you know, I I always think of the department as kind of the K 12 side and the post secondary side. And then post secondary is really kind of split into really two big pieces. One of them is being federal student aid, which is where most of the listeners are going to be familiar with is federal student aid and making sure that they they do that piece well, and get the funds to the institution, and that students are applying and filling out their FAFSA. The other piece is the office of post secondary education, which is where I was. And so for me, you know, Ope is responsible for kind of historically, two pieces, one is grant making, and the other is the policy piece that goes into all of the policies that impact institutions, and specifically impact Federal Student Aid and accreditation. Those are probably the two that they’re most familiar with. For me, I was always kind of on the grant side. That was the biggest piece. I was in the institutional service side. And so again, those are the HBCUs, the MSIS, the tccus, FC. You know, any institution that’s received some type of FC grant in the past,

Heather Shea
and say, what the acronym? That’s a

Jason Cottrell
sure it is the Fund for the improvement of post secondary education. And so often, you know, especially if you go back into, you know, the early 2000s institutions were receiving a lot of grants for things like computer systems and new computers technology, that type of stuff. The first in the world Grant was a FC program. And so some institutions may have gotten the first in the world grant, or heard of it. I was responsible. So I helped create two of those grants in the more recent administration and during the Biden administration. And so I was responsible for the Center of Excellence for spatial computing, you know, kind of a unique one. There they were, like, Jason’s the data guy. He can, he can do all of the tech stuff. And so, yeah. And I was like, I have no idea what spatial computing was I do now. And the second one is the research and development infrastructure grant, and so, which was a unique one that had come out of the Biden administration’s plans that one was really focused on increasing an institution’s capacity to move from, you know, lower level doctoral program in the Carnegie classifications up to Carnegie one if they Were a tccu, an HBCU or an MSI. And so what most people didn’t realize that is the HBCUs knew there were no, you know, r1 HBCUs, and you know, the goal was to move several of them up into that at the same time, Carnegie was also reconfiguring how the. How they classified institutions. But, you know, I think now, I think there are two. I think it’s North Carolina, A and T and Howard are now our ones on the new Carnegie classifications, but we were giving the money out to essentially allow them to go out and improve their capacity to actually do some great things and move into to the that area so that that’s within the FC program. The other things that we also were responsible for in ope were the international foreign language education area Eiffel and so that is the Fulbright Hays scholarship, the doctoral dissertation research award, where essentially we were giving funds to to graduate students to go out and learn how to, you know, speak certain languages and do their research in those languages, which was, you know, it’s a really unique, great program. That program no longer exists. The Well, the programs, I guess, do they’ve moved them out of the Eiffel area and got rid of the Eiffel folks. And so a lot of those folks were, you know, impacted by the recent layoffs. And we call them rifts, which is a reduction in force. You know, you in the federal government, you talk about the force and the mission. Our our force was reduced, and so by about half. And so that was, that’s really what ope did, is is grant making. The other area, you know that I forgot to mention that Heather is, is, know a lot about, yeah, that knows a lot about, which is trio and SSS and see campus and all of the student service level programs. And so when we talk about higher education programs within Ope, there’s really two areas, student service and institutional service. And the way that I think about it is, you know, the the focus of the program, and so the student level or the institutional level data. And so, you know, institution service, we collect institutional level data, graduation rates, retention rates, those types of things. SS, they collect information related to the student level data. And so you’re very familiar with that.

Heather Shea
Well, I’m, I’m, I shouldn’t say very I’ve been in my role over and one of the programs is trio. So I learned a lot when I was in DC a couple of weeks ago. But, yeah, I had just a very basic knowledge, and now I know a lot more so, and there’s a lot of concern, right? I mean, and I think the transition at the federal at the top has created a lot of turbulence across I mean, but in addition to all of the people who were let go, you know, I think there’s a lot of uncertainty about what might happen. And I when I think about like folks like you, career employees, provide the stability to help weather the that storm, I’d love to hear you talk a little bit about the other two transitions that you experienced since you were came in right at the beginning of Trump one, and then got to see Biden transition. And you know, how do the career employees deal with that kind of like pendulum swing,

Jason Cottrell
yeah, yeah, the you know, when your very first day, when you’re a federal employee, you know, of course, you come in and you’re filling out paperwork and everything, and which you come into the department, you get a, what’s called a PIV card. It’s your ID. You stick it in your computer to start your computer, you tap in to get into the building. It’s very much like a debit card to some extent, where it’s got the the information right there in the card, and you know, all of those things. And you know, you’re, you’re sitting there in the morning, you know, everybody’s like, trying to figure out what’s going on. You’re filling out retirement paperwork and that type of stuff. And then somebody comes in from human resources, and you stand up, and you know, take an oath to the Constitution, and you know you swear your allegiance to the Constitution, and you know that you do everything that you can to protect and serve the nation from all enemies, foreign and Domestic. And it’s, it’s very much the the same oath that folks in the military take, and or similar oath to the ones that the military takes, and, you know, the same one that folks take when they come in as the secretary of an agency. And, you know, you, it’s the, if you, if you don’t know this, you know, it’s, it’s kind of weird. So it was a little shocking. At first, I was like, Wait, man, what am I? What am I doing? Why? What? Am I doing? Why? What do you do? Right? I’m like, I’m just, it’s the Department of Education. I didn’t think I was taking, taking an oath. And you do, and you know, you understand that whoever is elected, you’re going to support their goals and their plans for. Of the agency and the you know, the the you’re going to follow the laws of, you know the nation, and you know, I came in during Obama’s end of Obama’s term in 2016 you know, and you learn all these things. And, you know, you interact with the political appointees. We call them politicals, politicals and careers, you know, and so you just kind of learn who they are, and if you’re new, you learn all the acronyms, and you spend all your time learning all of these things. And you start to learn their policies and their plans for the agency, for the for the nation, for the nation’s education system. And I remember after the election in 2016 you know, there was a lot of fear as to what was going to happen, because there had been a lot of things being said, and there was not a lot of experience, you know, having Trump during his first administration, and you know you are there to support them, and you know you are a career employee who has sworn an oath to the nation and to the Constitution to do what everything for the new administration. And that’s, that’s really what the what the focus was. And so, you know, we worked with a number of political appointees and got a lot of decent folks to come in. And, you know, we what we learned, what I learned, I should say, you know, and I think a lot of folks would agree is, you know, when the Republicans come in, they’re very focused on certain things, and they just want you to kind of help them out to get their policies accomplished. When we switched back to Biden, you know, the that administration, the folks were very much, you know, oh no, I just need this, these things done. And it was, we were, it was all hands on deck to, you know, get work accomplished. You know, they were in the weeds on everything, all of the details. And so each administration is a little different. But, you know, the Democrats are typically more in the weeds on things. And we’re like, get out of the weeds. Just go do what you need to do. We are worried we will get these things done for you. Republicans, not so much. I mean, that was the case apparently when Bush came in as well. And so, you know, it was, it’s been, it’s always very different when an administration comes in. And for us, you know, we are there to support the political appointees and do the things that they are asking us to do. And this go round, you know, I’ve mentioned to you before they got rid of the performance improvement office, which is the strategic planning, you know, area. And I mentioned this to somebody, you know, after I’d received my layoff is, you know, I can’t believe they got rid of the performance improvement area office, you know, that’s the one that does strategic planning. And they said, Jason, the plan is to get rid of the agency. That’s our final mission there. There are no goals outside of getting rid of the agency. And that just that is what hit me, is that this administration, it’s very they are looking at it from the perspective of, no the agencies, we’re going to shut down the agency, you know, one way or the other, the Department of Education will be gone. You know, there’s that they can’t but

Heather Shea
I think that’s an important detail to get into. We and we can get into that in a moment. Yeah,

Jason Cottrell
yeah, yeah, so, and we’ll get like, you know, that those types of things are things that each administration kind of comes in and, you know, they, they put in people to come in and have these conversations. You know, there are political appointees over each, each kind of entity. And you you kind of take their lead, and you know they’re asking you to reword something in a document, and you know you had asked earlier about their day to day. You know, a lot of my my days are like, I’m going through documents and, you know, cleaning stuff up and responding to questions from political appointees. We have what’s called the clearance process. And so anytime you see a document that is in the Federal Register, those documents go through two sets of clearance a third when it gets upstairs to the Secretary and everybody has their hands on it. You know, anything that I ever developed that went into the Federal Register, that information in my stuff wasn’t even that complicated. It’s like a repeat from last year. You know, the Office for Civil Rights looks at it, the Office of the General Council looks at it, the Office for elementary and secondary education looks at and it doesn’t even impact them, the Office of Special Education. And rehabilitation, they look at it, folks over in ies, the Institute for Education Statistics, they will look at it just to make sure that it is accurate. And then the political appointees will also take a look at that information to see, you know, what is being said? What what are we saying? What do we mean by this? You know? And there are times where, literally, you will give it to them this year and the next year, they’ll change it back to the way that it was because they don’t like the way that it’s written this year. And it’s like, you it’s frustrating. You just get used to it and you respond and say, you know, if this is what you want, that’s fine. You know, that’s the type of stuff that my days were filled with often, you know, outside of, you know, taking a look at spreadsheets, and, you know, analyzing data, and, you know, rewriting, you know, eligibility or performance reports, or, you know, working with grantees. And when they call our institutions that aren’t grantees, you know that that was the day to day. And each administration comes in, and they change their priorities. And so you you go through these documents again with a new administration, and that’s the stuff that you work with, you know. And you get, you get really great political appointees, and you get some that are not as great, and you still work with them, because these are the folks that you know the President has appointed, or somebody on the President’s team has appointed, and you work with them as best they can, because at the end of the day, it’s about the nation. It’s about the nation’s students. This is what the nation has elected, and we’re going to do the best that we can to support the American people,

Heather Shea
yeah, yeah, it’s, it’s a fascinating, it’s a fascinating transition. And I imagine that four years goes by really fast too, right? So as if you are the person who is elected and is is now in charge of this agency. I mean, I think back to, like the 2011 Dear Colleague letter with from the Office of Civil Rights. It really changed the way that title nine was to be administered, and that was how many years, you know, into Obama’s term. So I think maybe it wasn’t Obama. I don’t know. I can’t remember all the all the dates and all of that, but, but it’s just really interesting, because I feel like some of these things end up being, yes, it was Obama. Okay, now we’ll cut that little part out. Yeah. So I think it’s really interesting when you’re trying to get something done, you do have to have kind of an understanding of the larger agency. And it’s clear across the board, not just the Department of Education, that this transition is not following any of those historical patterns. So talk with me a little bit about the 1300 people who were laid off last month. How you know, you talked a bit in the in the beginning about how that impacted you. But you know, what is the the immediate and the long term impacts of all of this change under our current presidential administration? Yeah,

Jason Cottrell
yeah. So, you know, first off, you, you had mentioned about how quick four years goes by, and I’ll never forget when I, again, when I first started, at the end of Obama’s term, somebody was giving a speech, and they were introducing Marian Wright Edelman to the department she was coming In to to essentially cheer everybody up. And so they said, you know, when they first started, you know, during Obama’s first four years, he told them he’s like, listen, we only have four years. We’re not guaranteed the second four years. We only have four years. I want you to treat every day like it’s the last day of this administration, and we’re going to try to get everything done that we can in four years done. And so, you know, fast forward to now. They’re treating every day like it is the last day, and everything is new, and everything is just being, you know, it’s just, it’s a lot, and we’re only on day, what, 8090, at this point, and it feels like day, you know, 400 and some, because everything is just, it’s, it’s just being shredded. Or, you know, the way that we do things is not the way that things are going to be done moving forward. And clearly, that’s, that’s the goal. And it’s not just, you know, with Ed, I mean, it’s across the board and all of the agencies. And, you know, I think, you know, yesterday it was HHS, and they laid off 10,000 people. And you know, FDA is right here in Rockville, Maryland. Then people didn’t know they were literally showing up on on April 1 walking up and they can’t get in the building. They’re, you know, their cards not working. And that was, there’s your message, you know, they haven’t even logged into their computer. Wow. And so it’s those types of things that that’s happening. And so, you know, the 1300 folks that were laid off, you know, those are for, at least, for the department. So the department isn’t that big. It’s the it’s the smallest cabinet level agency in the government. And, okay, you know, you’re thinking about 24 2500 people, you know, in, you know, comparison to the Department of Defense, where it’s like, department defense is massive. There’s a reason that the Pentagon is as big as it is. And, you know, we were historically, we had four buildings. We had gotten it down to three buildings, and we were probably going down to two buildings. It’s going to be much smaller. You know, there’s 1300 people that were let go, which is about half of the agency. And of those, you know, I my area, you know, the office post secondary education, we lost on a 26 I think folks from just the layoffs. That’s not including, you know, we had a lot of people who took the fork in the road. We had a lot of people who took the Vera the early retirement option, and then they laid off the 26 of us. And you know, when I first started at the department, was 289 folks, and at the beginning of January, we were at about 140 and so we were already short staffed, and now we’re, you know, down, you know, probably another 40 some. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get down to, you know, less than 100 there’s another round coming, you know, that has already been mentioned. It will come sometime this summer, folks that will also be laid off. And, you know, I mentioned Eiffel was, you know, completely gotten rid of my area. I was my promotion took me into the management and support unit. That entire unit got, you know, was let go.

Heather Shea
Had you stayed in your previous role, would you still be working?

Jason Cottrell
I’d still be working. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when they say the grass isn’t always greener, but you know, you you don’t know. And the big pieces of the agency that were let go of, though, were some of the critical ones, you know, FSA got rid of, I think, 600 altogether, Federal Student Aid, you know, IES, the Institute for Education Statistics, was just gutted. The Office of the Chief Data Officer, which is a federally mandated part of the government because of the Evidence Act. You know, that’s why it was created. They’re down to three people. And you know, technically, the wording in the statute is you have to have a chief data officer. They’ve got a chief data officer, and that’s just about it, and they can’t be responsible for all the data that’s coming in and out of the department, the Office for Civil Rights, you know, they, they lost all of their their staff across the nation. And so that we have, we have folks that are kind of in regions, and, you know, they were, they were all gotten rid of, and it’s that’s one of, probably the biggest frustration, is the Office of Civil Rights, because, going back to what I mentioned earlier, which is the agency is a civil rights entity. I mean, that’s, that’s why we were created, was to ensure, you know, civil rights for our students, and you know that might be

Heather Shea
an interesting point to kind of clarify, like, how old is the department and why was it created, and particularly the Civil Rights piece, because I knew of the offices of civil rights, mostly because of my work with Title Nine, but I didn’t have this broader understanding of its creation. Yeah,

Jason Cottrell
yeah. So the department was created in 79 under the under the Jimmy Carter, okay, kind of presidency, you know, his, his four years everybody, I think Republicans have said for years that they wanted to get rid of the agency, and the they have kind of created this message that, you know, the Department of Education has failed because the nation students are failing. We’re not, you know, we’re actually going fairly well. You know, we could do better. I mean, the problem is that was, you need to take, take some of that funding and give it to education. You know, pay, pay for more teachers. We as a department have existed. 79 the precursor to the department is, you know, we, at one point were in what was called Health, Education and Welfare, which essentially what they did is they split it up out of HHS and education. And so we were, we were known as Hugh and the irony is, there were, there have been folks that I’ve worked with that were at the department when it was Hugh, wow. They had been with the department for that long. You know, the the folks that were in charge of TRIO for years. I mean, I’m not gonna mention names, but yeah, yeah. And so that was just, it was over in the Health, Education and Welfare. And so, you know, they split it up and with, with good reason, you know, the department was meant to focus on the civil rights of our nation’s students. And you know, that was, that was kind of a big piece of this. And, you know, you think back to Brown v Board, that was not that long ago, and you know, the goal of the department was to ensure that students had, you know, equal rights in their education system, and the Office for civil rights was designed to essentially protect our nation’s students, especially in the K 12 setting, where you know schools were still segregated, segregated, yeah, and you know we were the nation was at risk of having some extreme issues when it came to civil rights with the students. And so, you know, the the Office for Civil Rights would investigate these issues, and they would go into the schools to find out why were students being treated, you know, differently, you know, across the board. And you know, a lot of the today, you know, a lot of the things that they investigated were actually related to students with disabilities and making sure that, you know, students were being treated fairly, um, I think the message that’s getting put out there now is that they were spending a lot of time, you know, Trying to investigate, you know, gender and gender identity, you know. And yes, that was a part of it, but it wasn’t the 100% if they mean, a lot of what the Office of Civil Rights was doing were, you know, making sure that students were protected to get their IEPs and those types of things. And so, you know, that’s, that’s really what the Office for Civil Rights was designed to do within the Department of Education. And you know, when it, when the department was created, it was about getting, you know, even with student loans and Pell Grants, making sure that students were getting access to the things that they needed to, you know, go into post secondary education, and then from there, to be able to succeed in completing their credentials. And, you know, it was, it’s the way that I think about it, in a lot of ways, is it’s almost like an enrollment management perspective of, you know, making sure that students are enrolled, retained and graduate. And that’s a big piece of it. And you know, when you think of even within post secondary education, the TRIO programs and SSS programs, you know, that’s to get students to learn about college, to get into college, to then stay in college, and then you get into the institutional service side, which is making sure that this, you know, institutions are having the capacity to do what they need to do to have those students succeed. The other piece, you know that I mentioned was the Institute for Education, statistics and iPads, and, you know, they’re just, they’re kind of down to bare bones right now. And iPads and IEs in general, has pre predated all of us, because, you know, that goes back to, I think, 1873 was the first year that the nation started collecting information related to the nation’s education systems. And so there’s data going back that far, you know. And suddenly we’re in 2025 and we have eliminated the majority of the IES staff and the contracts that you know, collect the data, you know, I What boggles my mind is they, they actually got rid of one of the contracts, not related to post secondary education, but related to K 12, and they got rid of it and didn’t realize what the contract did, and suddenly they were like, Oh no, we need to bring it back. And so then they’re out back, you know, back to the contractor saying, you know, we need you to come back and do what you were doing, but we’re not going to pay you as much to do this because, and of course, you know, right now, they’re, I mean, they’re dangling contracts over people’s heads, you know, of course, you’re going to do it for the rate that they want you to pay. Wow,

Heather Shea
that’s efficiency, I guess. Right, right? I don’t even know, I mean, so I let’s get into the executive order a little bit, because I do think, first of all, the dramatic signing with school children simultaneously signing the same thing that was such a bizarre, such a bizarre thing to look at, you know, just in general. But you know, what does that executive order actually do? And, you know, kind of what is next, you know? And, I mean, I think continuing to lay off people, but who actually created the Department of Ed and who gets to keep it going?

Jason Cottrell
Right, right? Yeah. So, you know, the department was created by an act of Congress. You know, it was a law. It was passed by the Senate. It was passed by the House. It was signed by President Jimmy Carter, creating, creating the department. There are pieces of the department that are statutorily required, collecting data, the Office for Civil Rights, even having an assistant post, Assistant Secretary for post secondary education is in that that law. But again, it gets down to the point of, well, if we have an assistant secretary, is that all? And we need, you know, can we get rid of these things, move these things around. And so, you know, it’s about playing with some of the semantics of the law. The executive order doesn’t do much. It directs the Secretary to, you know, diminish the department for its closure. Executive Orders aren’t law. First off, they are executive orders. They often are orders to the executive branch of the government to do certain things. It isn’t, you know. It isn’t saying, you know that, you know we’re going to override what Congress did and it that type of thing they can’t do that. It is, it is literally just telling somebody in the executive branch, this is what you’re going to do, and this is how you’re going to follow it. And the executive order, as it stands, it can’t do too much. I mean, they can’t really close the department. I think the biggest concern right now is the fact that they’re talking about moving some stuff around, and that’s the biggest concern is, you know, you can’t really move the student loans over to small business administration easily, if at all, you know there are, there are things in place, you know, we, you know we, and we can even look back at the Biden administration, and we talk about FAFSA, you know that that was already a major issue, you know. And all they were doing was they were trying to upgrade the system to make the system better, because it was really old and and

Heather Shea
it was collecting a whole bunch of stuff that could be automated today. Yeah, correct, correct. And so there are parents who filled out fast as both years and very familiar,

Jason Cottrell
yeah, yeah, yeah, that and that was, that was already a big hiccup for college campuses, yeah. And so, you know, you you think now, you know, now you’re just going to move the, the entire portfolio of student loans over to another agency. The the one thing that you know stands out in my mind is, you know, if you’re talking about moving the student loan system over to small business administration and ies, you know, all of the education statistics over to, let’s say commerce, because they collect data on, you know, the census, you’re going to run into issues, a lot of them, you know, the first being, you know, you the college scorecard. And I’m assuming most folks are familiar with the college scorecard. You

Heather Shea
You can go on and you can look up the link in the chat

Jason Cottrell
That one, there are folks that work on that. I have, you know, I know that some of those folks are still there. And luckily, the college scorecard is going to continue to exist that has data that is linked to student records in terms of the IRS. And so once you graduate, the you that information comes from IRS over to the department, so that we can take a look and say, you know, this is the average salary of a graduate at this institution. And it was. It was a big deal when that happened because of the fact that now the IRS data is going to the Department of Education, and so we had to have a memorandum of understanding that we could access this data. And the same thing with FAFSA data, when you know when you pull that information over from the IRS to your FAFSA data, is that making sure that that’s all legit, you know. And the same thing with your student loans, when you’re, you know, re upping your, you know, income dependent, you know, repayment plan is that legit, and making sure that that’s coming over properly. And you get a little letter in the mail that says, you know, this was accessed. Um. The the Memorandum of Understanding took years to get cleared through the Department of Justice, through the courts, through all of those things, the same thing is going to happen now, because those programs that I talked about, that I worked on, rely on iPads data, and the iPads data has to be accessible to the department. And so if you’re just going to throw them over to the Commerce Department, but then you’re going to move the grants over to HHS, suddenly, there’s an issue where I can’t just access those data anymore. That has to be communicated in some way. And so it’s not as easy as just signing an executive order. There has to be a plan. You can’t just come downstairs and do a press conference and saying, we’re going to do it. It’s there are a lot of pieces of the puzzle that make it impossible to do in four years. You it’s going to be a 10 year process. You can pass the legislation now, but it’s going to take time to get that to the point where it needs to be. And so, you know, I don’t expect the Department of Education to close in the next three and a half years. Now, you know, if we’re counting we’re counting down. And so there those those pieces are, it’s going to take a while. And so I don’t think anybody needs to be fearful of that. I think what they need to be fearful of is, you know, people disappearing at the department that do the things that need to be done to ensure that funding is going to the the right places and to the right people.

Heather Shea
Yeah. I mean, I know from the trio policy Summit, where, where we were, you know, in DC, the big, the big question was, we have a couple of different grant competitions that are either in process or coming. And, you know, I know on my campus, I have 600 students who are served by our trio grant, and we’re waiting to know like, and if we don’t know by August, you know that that’s completely changing the way those 600 students are potentially to be served or not. And I think the delay might be harder than just saying you didn’t get the grant. You know, I mean, right? Because we’re in this limbo state, of course, of course, like fulfilling those promises is what Congress has created the you know, the appropriation was appropriated by Congress, which is why we were in DC, talking with our representatives. So, yeah,

Jason Cottrell
yeah, yeah. And that’s I, you know, that’s the conversation that we’ve been having a lot with, with folks. Is, at least until I was there. I guess my last day was actually March 6. I had, I had surgery on March 7, and so I was out on leave. And then, so I really haven’t talked to anybody, but, you know, the up until that date, you know, people were asking, you know, when are these competitions coming? And so, you know, when you’re thinking about the MSI programs, you know, and that’s, that’s the best example I can give, is there’s a process that kind of has to happen in a timeline. And, yeah, whenever, when, whenever. We’re thinking about the, like, current grants, we’re really thinking about the two years from now, because we start to work backwards in a lot of ways. And so, you know, we start with september 30. That’s the date. And so the reason that we we use that is that’s the last day of the federal fiscal year, and that’s the last day that we can obligate funds for a program. And so september 30 is that that drop dead date for everything. Then you move backwards. And so as of today, you know, it is, you know, April 2, and we still have eligibility for the MSI programs open. So we can’t even make a, you know, start competitions. Really, they are taking forever to clear the NIA, is, which was the notice inviting applications for programs. You know, we can’t do fund down the slates because they didn’t let us open the annual performance reports for the grants, because they’re, they have issues with certain things, you know. And so suddenly, you know, we’re, we’re halfway through the fiscal year, and we haven’t started competitions. Now, you’ve also cut the folks who run the competitions. You know, I it was never my job to really run most competitions outside of the FC programs that I mentioned earlier. But I helped out, you know, I was a panel monitor. I was a control room person, you know. And so the competitions, typically, you know, a reviewer will get 10 to 15 applications to review, and you do them in panels of two to three. Typically, three is better because there’s a tie breaker there. And you know, with trio, for example, you get you. Are 1000s of applications in Yeah, who’s reviewing them, who is panel monitoring to make sure that things are being done in a way that is appropriate, to ensure that there is no waste, fraud or abuse in the process. And so that’s, that’s where that is, yeah, and

Heather Shea
I know that we were told that the review had already happened. Now they’re just on the like, Okay, we need to get the notification out. So well, let’s, I’d love to hear a little bit about what’s next for you. How, how are you now transitioning back into higher ed. And how are you using your experience, kind of leverage your, your skill set, right? I mean, I think that this is the, this is the benefit of having seen both sides. You have this, like, insider knowledge,

Jason Cottrell
yeah, yeah. So I am on the job search. If you know anything, I’m looking from, like, more in Maryland, DC, Virginia, you know, I’m really kind of looking anywhere from, like north of Baltimore down to Northern Virginia, Springfield area, and then I’d say Annapolis, because I don’t want to cross the bridge all the way out towards Frederick, maybe, maybe Hagerstown.

Heather Shea
And so people who are in that area, right?

Jason Cottrell
Yeah, and I’m applying there. I’m kind of lucky, because I’m in a, the first round of all of this, and B, it is the spring which it’s higher ed hiring season. I think in a lot of ways, the biggest concern, I think, right now is, you know, I’m getting contacts from federal contractors. Well, federal contractors, you know, we don’t know if their contracts are going to be renewed or picked up or, you know, it’s kind of a wonky time. Colleges and Universities are kind of putting hiring freezes on and maybe some layoffs, because, you know, if they’re in the scientific area, you know, they’re losing funding in NIH, but I’m extremely open to a lot of different things right now. I I, I would like to return to a campus. I think is kind of where I’m leaning. But I’m applying for, you know, some nonprofits that are hiring, you know, I think some entities are kind of ramping up because they they know that they’re getting ready to take one in administration for the next four years. And so they need folks, especially in the policy and research realm. And so I do, you know, my background is in student affairs. You know, I’d love to go back to student affairs. It should take Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. You know, I was in orientation working in enrollment management, but that’s also that overlapping area. And so I’m, I’m excited to see what the kind of the the future is going to bring for me, you know, it’s, it’s kind of a new day, you know. I, the hardest part is, you know, for the first few days, I was very sad to be losing my job, because it was something I really did love, you know. But, you know, I think that there are ways that I can assist students, you know, outside and that ways that I can support the public, you know, outside of the Department of Education. And, you know, it’s, it is, it’s a little bit of a new day. I think for all of us, you know. I think all of us, you know, from college campuses to nonprofits to government workers. You know, it we we have to really rethink about the way that we’re approaching this work. And, you know, I have 100% belief that my my colleagues within the department that are remaining, that they’re going to do what’s right for our nation students. And they’re going to do, you know, they’re going to do the best that they can with the people that they’ve got. They’re going to try to make that september 30 deadline, whether or not I’m there or not. And so, you know, I want people to know that there are people there that are still working to try to get these things done for me. You know, it’s, it’s just a question of, you know, where I’m going to go and, you know, I do want to stay in the area. You know, I love living here. I grew up in this area. There’s, again, there’s something magical about DC and this, this region. I love my crab cakes here in Maryland. So, you know, ACPA is coming up in Baltimore next year. Gonna be great. Shout out. You know, great, great opportunity for folks to come out to to Baltimore, it, it, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s next for me. I really am kind of looking in a broad swath of things. You know, everything from Associate Dean all the way up to Vice President is kind of where, where I’m, kind of looking and, you know, I’m, I’m excited about the opportunities. It’s the hardest part is getting back into, how do I write these cover letters for these types of jobs? Yeah, you know, and how do I clean that stuff up? But, you know, in the meantime, I, I’m trying to really focus on me. You know, people have asked how I’m doing. I’m at peace with all. All of this, you know, I internally like I thought that I’d be really scared, upset all that. I’m at peace with it. I’ve really kind of been focusing on me. You know, baseball season starting. So I’m hitting some baseball games. Hockey season’s coming to an end. My caps are doing really well. So Ovie is getting ready to cross over in past Gretzky. So it’s those types of things that I have been focused on. My dogs, you know, being here, being back at home with them, because I’m no longer in the office. And you know my husband, you know he’s here, you know, working from home. And so, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s about that type of stuff. I’m really kind of trying to reconnect to my own roots, you know, I’m trying to, you know, I’ve get some writing done. I’ve had, like, ideas for books that I haven’t been able to legally, ethically write, and now I can actually start writing. You know, I’ve got at least two books that I couldn’t one is a fictional book, but two of them I have not been able to write. And so now I can actually focus on developing those proposals and get some creativity out. You know, I my husband’s the artist in the family. I am not. And so for me, you know, one of the things I really want to do is focus on some of the crafting and that type of stuff. My sister and I were both crafters more than anything, and so

Heather Shea
it’s that what’s bringing you joy. It is. It

Jason Cottrell
is. And, you know, it’s springtime, it’s yeah, fresh, fresh season. It is spring. So, yes, well,

Heather Shea
we always end our episodes at the same question. Our podcast is called Student Affairs NOW, what are you thinking about, troubling, pondering now,

Jason Cottrell
if fresh season, you know, I know, I know folks are scared, and rightfully so. I think you know, especially when it comes to DEI work on college campuses, especially in student affairs, and it’s it’s going to be hard. And I want folks to know that, you know, one of the things that has brought me kind of to this point of peace is I know that there are college administrators out there, Student Affairs practitioners that are doing the work to ensure that the student who loses a parent, there’s somebody there to listen that if a student is is dealing with an issue related to their sexual orientation or gender identity, that there is somebody on their college campus that is there to listen and support them and help them out, and so that, in terms of things that I’m kind of pondering is, it’s that, it’s that that there are folks there that are able to help, and they may not be able to have the public facing website or the DEI program, whatever it may be, there are folks on that campus that are there, they are going to make sure that they can help those students succeed and be safe and unharmed. You know, regardless of what you call it, they are they. They may not be in the identity center, but they are there and that they are going to do whatever they need to make sure that the word gets out. I mean, that’s, that has been what folks have been doing for 100 years. You know, it’s, you know, when you know gay men and women were in college in the 70s and 80s, there was somebody there, even if there wasn’t an LGBT resource center. And so just know that, that that is the case, and trust and believe in in hope and joy and just, you know, we will all get through this together. It’s going to be rough, but there are people that we can all talk to and come together in community. You know, go to a conference, go to a regional conference. You know, go to those institutes set up these calls, is the other thing. Yeah, go back to the days when we hit during COVID, where we were doing, you know, virtual happy hours. You know, if you need to do that, do that with your friends. You know, it’s, that’s what it’s about. And just, I think a lot of people like I said, I think a lot of people are scared, but the things that I’ve been really trying to think about is, you know, that there are people there. We haven’t disappeared, you know, right, right? We’re here, yeah, we’re here for one another, and we’re here for our students.

Heather Shea
That’s great. Well, Jason, thank you so much. It was great to talk to you. I. I learned so much about the Department of Ed, and I, you know, feel like on the on the front end, I was like, Oh, I kind of know all these things, and we’ve been creating FAQs for students and stuff. And I’m like, this is fascinating. So thank you for your time. We also want to take a moment to express our gratitude to Nat Ambrosey, our producer, Nat, we so appreciate all the work that you do to make us look and sound great. And thanks again to our sponsors for today’s episode Huron and Evolve. Evolve helps senior leaders who value aspire to lead on and want to unleash their potential for transforming leadership our own. My good friend Keith Edwards, along with doctors Brian Rao and Don Lee, off of personalized experience with high impact value, the asynchronous content and six individual and six group coaching sessions maximize your learning and growth with a focused time investment, greatly enhancing your ability to lead powerfully for social change here on collaborates with colleges and universities to create sound strategies, optimize operations and accelerate digital transformation by embracing diverse perspectives, encouraging new ideas and challenging the status quo. Huron promotes institutional resilience in higher education. For more information, please visit, to all of our listeners. If you’re tuning in today and you’re not already subscribed to our weekly newsletter, please take a moment to enter your email the very bottom header of our of our website on studentaffairsnow.com Stay in the loop with the latest episodes delivered to your inbox each week on Wednesdays, and I am, as I said at the beginning, Heather Shea, thanks to everybody who is watching or listening. Let’s make it a great week.

Why hire Federal Employees? https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-7304910052862099456-auMo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAHYsDkBQL-c5FXmAm47TcCiY8gZBHdZ2Nw 

Education Department Layoffs by the Numbers https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2025/03/13/education-department-layoffs-by-the-numbers/82337776007/ 

What the Education Department actually does. https://www.slowboring.com/p/what-the-department-of-education

The Evidence Act (text): https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/4174/text