Collection of Free Education Research May Lose Funding

The Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), an online repository of educational research and historical documents that dates back to the 1960s, will most likely run out of funding today, April 23, The Hechinger Report reported this week.

ERIC, which is managed and funded by the U.S. Department of Education, has a contract to continue its operations through 2028, and its funds for the coming year have already been approved by Congress. But according to the employee who managed the database, who was terminated amid massive cuts to the department in March, the Department of Government Efficiency has refused to approve the disbursement of those funds.

Before her role was eliminated, Erin Pollard Young had been working to halve the cost of ERIC at DOGE’s insistence, she told The Hechinger Report. But that proposal was rejected shortly before the mass layoffs.

ERIC houses about 2.1 million educational documents, including a significant amount of research that was never published and therefore cannot be found elsewhere. Other research is free to access through the database but would be hidden behind a paywall without ERIC.

Young said the website for ERIC likely won’t go down immediately, though it won’t be updated.

“But without constant curation and updating, so much information will be lost,” she told Hechinger.