The Education Department is considering terminating its contracts for thousands of call center employees hired to answer families’ questions about federal student aid, and may replace them with an artificial intelligence–powered chat bot, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency apparently suggested the move, the Times reported, as part of a broader effort to reduce federal spending—which has already led to dozens if not hundreds of layoffs at the Education Department and the cancellation of hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts at the Institute for Education Sciences.
The call centers employ 1,625 people who answer more than 15,000 calls per day, according to an Education Department report. The department greatly increased staffing at their call centers after last year’s bungled launch of the new FAFSA led to an overwhelming influx of calls.
Last September, a Government Accountability Office investigation found that in the first five months of the rollout, three-quarters of calls went unanswered. Last summer, the department hired 700 new agents to staff the lines and had planned to add another 225 after the launch of the 2024–25 FAFSA in November.
One of the helplines DOGE is closely scrutinizing, according to the Times, is operated by the consulting firm Accenture. Accenture also operates the studentaid.gov website, which houses the online platform for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. The department’s contract with the firm expires Feb. 19. According to sources in the Education Department who spoke with Inside Higher Ed, the department is considering significant reductions to its Accenture contract ahead of its renewal.