White House moves to eliminate Federal Executive Institute
The Federal Executive Institute, a long-standing leadership development center for federal executives, is shutting down.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday directing the Office of Personnel Management to take all necessary steps to abolish the FEI.
“Per POTUS’s order, the Federal Executive Institute will be closed. It’s time the federal workforce worked for America’s taxpayers!” OPM said on social media platform X.
The institute opened its doors in 1968 — President Lyndon B. Johnson created it as a senior staff college within the federal government to support high-ranking civil service officials.
FEI offers a wide range of training programs tailored for federal employees at different career stages, from early-career professionals seeking leadership roles to senior government executives. as a cornerstone for the professional development of GS-15 and Senior Executive Service (SES) employees by strengthening their leadership and management skills, deepening their understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and improving their ability to leverage diverse talents within the federal workforce.
Elimination of the Federal Executive Institute is part of this administration’s broader mission to “reform the federal bureaucracy, including by ending ineffective government programs that drain resources and empower government without achieving measurable results,” the executive order states.
In just three weeks since taking office, Trump has bulldozed his way through the federal government, firing more than a dozen independent inspectors general, placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave as he moves to phase out the agency, and targeting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Trump said shutting down FEI is another effort to cut waste and eradicate “frivolous expenditures that fail to align with American values.”
“Sure we should evaluate how we’re spending training dollars. Maybe we can do better. But I’m not aware of any successful organization that doesn’t train or invest in its people. I’m not aware of a major corporation in this country that doesn’t have some version of a corporate learning function,” Jason Briefel, Senior Executives Association’s director of policy and outreach, told Federal News Network.
“The question, more broadly, for the administration, is what is their plan for senior career leadership or for senior leadership in general? Where do they expect folks to be trained? Do they have a vision that this is just an innate ability that certain people have and others don’t? Even if you’re just building a followership based model of saluting and following orders, you still need to train your execution layer. You still need to bring them on board with the program.”
It is unclear how many people are currently enrolled at FEI and OPM didn’t provide a timeline for when the institute will officially close.
The institute operates with a relatively small team – its staff comprises resident faculty members and adjunct faculty from various institutions across the country, including Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Georgetown University, and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. It’s unclear how the institute’s closure will be handled.
“All we’re hearing is cuts. When and where are investments in the workforce going to occur? Because we do need people. It might be less people, might be different people, the people may or may not need different skills. So be it, but how are we going to build that talent pipeline? What are the administration’s plans there? How do they differentiate among current executive level leaders and people in their leadership journey who are aspiring to that level. Is it like every agency is going to be left to their own devices? That, frankly, we’ve been doing too much of that for far too long,” said Briefel.
Since its inception, FEI has graduated more than 30,000 senior federal leaders. Alumni of the program describe FEI as a transformative experience, both personally and professionally.
“FEI is an incredible resource. It is focused on teaching the Constitution. It gives us the grounding on why we do public service. Why we are here and serving the country in these roles,” a federal executive who graduated from FEI told Federal News Network.
“The connections to other executives across the government are so valuable. You create a network and resources to lean on throughout your career. It’s just a really valuable program. Once FEI is gone, the cost to get it back will be too much and that is really sad.”
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