Department of Defense Severs Academic Ties With Harvard

In a video posted to social media on Friday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said his department will discontinue all graduate-level professional military training, fellowships and certificate programs for active-duty service members at Harvard University starting in the 2026–27 school year. 

Currently enrolled service members will be allowed to finish their courses, he said. 

“For too long this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” Hegseth said. “Instead too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard. Heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”

This is the latest move in the Trump administration’s effort to bring Harvard to heel and comes three days after the president demanded $1 billion from the university. His Truth Social post appeared six hours after The New York Times reported the government had backed off its demands for a financial penalty in its negotiations with the institution.    

Hegseth did not specify which programs would lose DoD support, but Harvard offers a number of fellowships for active-duty military, including the Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs National Security Fellowship in which, according to The New York Times, 12 officers were enrolled this year.

The Harvard Kennedy School’s American Service Fellowship, launched last July, is available to active-duty military. Meanwhile, the website for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership Military and Veteran Graduate Fellowship program says it is not accepting applications for the 2026–27 academic year. 

Hegseth also said that in two weeks the Pentagon will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at all Ivy League universities and “other civilian universities,” without clarifying which ones.  

“The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost-effective strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to, say, public universities and our military graduate programs,” he said.