OPM to pursue ‘mass deferment’ of deadlines for CyberCorps students

The U.S. government plans to pursue a “mass deferment” of job placement deadlines for a cornerstone program for training and placing student talent into government cybersecurity positions, aiming to give affected students a temporary reprieve from requirements that would have sent many of them into debt.

The CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program provides college tuition and a stipend to awardees, who, in return, commit to working in a government cybersecurity role upon graduation. It’s backed by the Office of Personnel Management and the National Science Foundation, the latter of which awards scholarships for up to three years of support to cybersecurity undergraduate and graduate participants, including Ph.D candidates.

But job placements for scholars have been hobbled by broader efforts initiated by the Trump administration this year to shrink and rescope the federal workforce, including various cybersecurity and intelligence community offices. A hiring freeze and shutdown-related layoffs have ...