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This chapter examines the process of preparation for public service in America, and in sync with theme of this volume, highlights the transition of federal hiring from a respected albeit bureaucratic process to one compromised by political conflict, special interests, and bureaucratic indifference to talent from the next generation. To better explain this transition, the chapter develops a simple supply and demand model to examine the labor market for federal public servants, its equilibration, and how the process has changed over the last 40 years, and most acutely, over the last 5 years. Using the case studies of the Higher Education Reauthorization Bill of 2018, and the US Presidential Management Fellowship program in a comparative analysis, this chapter concludes that a) the government neither encourages nor rewards professional education for public service; b) the growing indebtedness and sector neutrality of students diminishes the supply of graduates, and therefore c) the pipeline of the most talented graduate elite into the Federal Civil Service has largely ruptured.