The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Hi SMART forum,

From what I’m understanding from the official memorandum, we have six months post graduation to secure employment with the federal government else we have our debts waived. I graduated in December, but due to the hiring freeze, it’s been six months and I am still without a role. I have an FJO, which hasn’t been rescinded yet. Now SMART has indicated to me via email that it’s actually six months post publishing of the memorandum (so until September) Has anyone received similar communication?

I’m tired emotionally, do I apply for other roles or not? I don’t want to hedge my bets and say I’m not going to get hired just for September to roll around and for them to say that I can onboard.

I heard from my SF Component Liaison that "The SMART Program has received the approved exemption request from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (OUSD) from hiring restrictions to include current hiring freeze and hiring ratio requirements (Executive Order Number 1420, February 11, 2025) for all SMART Scholars across the DoD. ERDC received this notification of approval on Monday, June 9, 2025." I would reach out to your Scholar Coordinator and see what is going on. Things are still slow going, but my onboarding stuff is slowly getting started.

There is going to be some dependence on the sponsoring facility.

Not all organizations are in the same space here. Even if they are authorized to hire, they might also be under direction to drastically reduce head count.

Your SMART coordinator might know more. It's plausible you'll get an email tomorrow to start the onboarding process. It's also possible they'll never onboard you.