The Office of Personnel Management is set to publish new regulations codifying recent moves to make it easier for federal agencies to pay and offer jobs to their interns who are still in college, implementing provisions of two laws aimed at improving recruitment of young federal workers.
Following a decade of declining enrollment in agencies’ various internship and early-career talent programs, Congress included provisions in the 2019 and 2020 National Defense Authorization acts designed to make it easier for agencies to pay their interns by offering them temporary appointments and the option to convert them to permanent roles once they graduate.
OPM first implemented these policies in an interim rule in 2021. Since then, agencies have been able to use an expedited hiring authority to provide one-year temporary appointments or four-year term appointments in the competitive service to students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Under the now-final regulations, set for publication in the Federal Register Thursday, college students studying at least part-time can work for a federal agency while finishing their studies, provided that they are paid at a GS-11 level or below. The rule also allows a “break in program” to allow students to work full time, such as during a summer internship, pause their agency work to study full time, or simply take a short break from both, though approval of these breaks are up to agencies’ discretion.
In response to public comments, OPM sought to clarify the statute’s annual cap on the number of appointments agencies can make under the new authority—set at 15% of students appointed by the agency in the prior fiscal year.
“OPM agrees additional clarification is necessary on which types of appointments may be counted when determining the numerical limit,” the regulations state. “We have modified the provisions . . . to clarify that an agency may count appointments made under this authority and other appointments of students made using an appointing authority that was specifically created for the appointment of students. This would include appointments made under the Pathways Internship Authority, the Post-secondary Student authority, agency specific statutory appointing authorities for hiring students; and other statutory appointing authorities for hiring students such as the Boren Awards Program appointments.”
One area where OPM did differ from its Biden-era rule is in the removal of a requirement that agencies provide data to Congress and OPM on the number of appointments under this authority, the number of separations, as well as more generally about agency recruitment efforts or difficulties in employing the new hiring power.
“The authorizing statute required specific reporting requirements for the first three years after enactment of the statute (August 2018 through August 2020),” OPM wrote. “Because the dates for required reporting have passed, we have removed the reporting requirement from the regulatory text. OPM continues to conduct oversight of all hiring activities including agency use of this hiring authority.”
