“It’s clear that this was not put together with a great deal of care,” one researcher said about DOGE’s misleading cost-cutting math.
WASHINGTON – The newly formed Department of Government Efficiency says it shaved nearly $900 million from the U.S. Department of Education’s budget.
But that math isn’t adding up, according to both left- and right-leaning researchers who say the savings are exaggerated and a new analysis that shows it doesn’t account for roughly $400 million that was effectively wasted – not saved – by the DOGE team.
“DOGE has an unprecedented opportunity to cut waste and bloat,” Nat Malkus, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote in a blog post. “However, the sloppy work shown so far should give pause to even its most sympathetic defenders.”
Research into the task force’s cost-cutting measures conducted by New America, a progressive think tank, and reviewed by USA TODAY reveals layers of erroneous calculations. DOGE, spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk, said it saved $881 million two weeks ago by terminating 89 contracts at the Education Department’s research arm; however, the real value of the contracts was closer to $676 million.
The DOGE team appears to have acknowledged it gave misleading estimates: DOGE’s Wall of Receipts website lists $489 million, not $881 million, in savings based on the same canceled contracts.
Much of the education funding that DOGE nixed was also already allocated. As New America’s researchers explained, “Research cannot be undone and statistics cannot be uncollected.” Because of the cuts, they said, studies will go unfinished, likely sitting “on a computer somewhere untouched.” The government has already spent nearly $400 million on those agreements, many of which will now have to go through a long rebidding process again, costing taxpayers more.
By subtracting the money the government has spent from what it agreed to award, New America put the actual savings from DOGE’s cuts closer to $278 million.
Axing droves of research isn’t like canceling a subscription, said Antoinette Flores, director of higher education accountability and quality at New America and a former high-ranking official in the Education Department’s Office of Postsecondary Education during the Biden administration.
“It’s clear that this was not put together with a great deal of care,” said Flores, whose team uncovered the discrepancies. “This is work that is in progress, and that you will get nothing for.”
The American Enterprise Institute found similar discrepancies in DOGE’s number-crunching. Malkus called DOGE’s initial claims of $881 million in savings “an arbitrary mishmash that doesn’t hold water.”
He, too, said the team is going about its work all wrong.
The findings underscore a pattern of hyperbole and falsehoods, critics say, from the DOGE team about its work. DOGE’s six-person detail at the Education Department effectively decimated the Institute of Education Sciences, the agency’s longtime research apparatus, a move that has drawn criticism from conservatives and progressives alike with expertise in the field.
Major studies about virtually every aspect of schooling in the U.S. were scrapped seemingly overnight.
“They form the basis of what we know about education in the United States,” Flores said. “Without that, everyone’s in the dark.”
Margaret Spellings, who led the Education Department during George W. Bush’s Republican administration, denounced the cuts in an interview on CBS News last week.
“Without that research, without that accountability, without that transparency, we’re really flying blind,” she said.
An Education Department spokesperson referred USA TODAY to DOGE when asked about the calculations. The White House said the DOGE team’s calculations don’t assume any administrative savings, adding that the task force has been reporting both “ceiling” and “savings” values from recently terminated contracts.
In a post Feb. 12 on X, the Education Department said the establishment of the Institute of Education Sciences more than two decades ago has left students “no better off.”
“We want to ensure that every dollar being spent is directed toward improving education for kids – not conferences and reports on reports,” the agency wrote.
Many of the underlying facts that Republicans have routinely used to call for reforming schooling in the U.S. have relied on data compiled or funded by the agency’s research apparatus. That includes critiques levied by President Donald Trump‘s nominee to lead the Education Department.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
Contributing: Javier Zarracina
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social.
