It's obviously a low point for federal employment. The Trump administration is laying off thousands of people amid the government shutdown, which came on the heels of a hiring freeze, the DOGE-powered firings, and tens of thousands of voluntary retirements.
But at four universities around the country, a Pentagon pilot program is preparing students for civilian careers with the military, and many of them are still optimistic.
"I don't think it's really affected my mindset," said Patrick Droney, a civil engineering major at Virginia Tech. "I'm still set on going to work for the Department of Defense and contributing to that mission."
Droney is one of almost 60 students at his university who won competitive spaces in the program, which is called the Defense Civilian Training Corps, or DCTC.
It's essentially an ROTC for civilian military jobs. The students selected for the two-year program get scholarships and summer Defense Department internships. And just like ROTC cadets, they incur an obligation to serve, only in civilian positions.
In addition to Virginia Tech, the pilot program also includes students at North Carolina A&T, Purdue, and the University of Arizona.
For now, DCTC on all four campuses is solely focused on training students for jobs in acquisitions, the federal procurement arm that buys everything from fighter planes and submarines to maintenance services and spare parts.
At Virginia Tech, Greg Lowe is director of the program, which he describes as a talent factory for the Department of Defense.
"Traditionally, the Department hires new graduates out of college, brings them in on day one, and you have to teach them the fundamentals," he said.
But by the time DCTC students graduate, Lowe said, they're up to speed on the work and the culture of working in the Defense Department acquisitions.
"They understand the lingo, they understand the concepts and the processes, they understand how to work together as a small, multi-disciplinary team, and those are skills that are really not taught anywhere else," Lowe said. "They are ready on day one, but they're also adaptable for the future."
He said their internships with the Department of Defense are key.
"They're not just attending meetings and getting coffee, they're actually working on real DoD problems," Lowe said. "And then the goal is that those same agencies are the first to offer positions to them upon graduation."
The Virginia Tech students are majoring in such subjects as data analytics, engineering, and cybersecurity.
Brynt Parmeter was the Pentagon's Chief Talent Officer — an Assistant Secretary of Defense-level position — until earlier this year.
He said during the Biden administration, the Pentagon had hoped to expand DCTC from the four-school pilot program to more universities and more types of civilian jobs.
But that was before the DOGE-led cutting chaos began.
Parmeter, now at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said DCTC was on the chopping block when he left the government.
"When the new administration came in, and it was all about cuts .… There was no interest in growing people," he said. "It didn't matter who it was or what it was, it was the cuts that mattered."
The Pentagon didn't respond to a question about the future of DCTC. But some in Congress continue to support it and are trying to mandate that the Trump Administration keep it going. The version of the annual defense funding bill recently passed by the Senate would authorize the Secretary of Defense to hire up to 60 DCTC graduates a year and require him to annually report to Congress on that hiring.
Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution's Foreign Policy program said eliminating DCTC would have downsides similar to the DOGE cuts that targeted government workers in their first years of service.
"It sort of eats the seed corn," O'Hanlon said. "The young, hungry, curious people are the ones you should want to incentivize to stay, and they also happen to be less expensive than people my age who have been doing this their whole career."
And at some point, he said, the Pentagon will have no choice but to prioritize hiring again.
"The Department of Defense relies enormously on its full-time civilian government workforce," said O'Hanlon. "There are about 800,000 full-time government employees — civilians who do not wear the uniform to work -- doing various kinds of support activities for the Department of Defense, virtually all of which are crucial."
Crucial workers who eventually leave or retire must be replaced, he said.
Peyton Coleman, a graduate student at Virginia Tech in business analytics, said she was drawn to the DCTC program because she wants a career that offers a sense of purpose and lets her serve the country.
"It's the mission, knowing that I'm going to go to work every day and be supporting the war fighter and doing something that's making a real impact out in the world," she said.
Coleman interned at the Defense Logistics Agency this summer, working in the purchase of critical materials such as rare earth elements. She remains hopeful that the program will lead to a career.
"I think we're definitely in a time of uncertainty in the hiring process, but I think it was really good seeing within DLA this summer how they handled the hiring freeze," she said. "And seeing that they still were putting their people first and finding ways to make sure that everyone was where they needed to be."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans.
