Harvard Slashes Admissions for Ph.D. Candidates

Harvard University plans to drastically reduce the number of Ph.D. students it admits in the next two years, according to a series of emails obtained by The Crimson, the student newspaper.

Within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, there will be a 75 percent cut to the sciences division and a 60 percent cut to the arts and humanities. The scope of cuts to the social sciences division remains unclear but is estimated to fall somewhere between 50 and 70 percent.

Harvard officials did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

Five faculty members told The Crimson that it was left up to the various departments to decide how they allot the remaining admissions slots. Still, the cuts run deep. Any department left with just one slot for a new student after the percentage cuts were applied would not be allowed to admit any new scholars, one faculty member said. Friday is the deadline for departments to finalize how they want to distribute their slots.

FAS dean Hopi Hoekstra previously announced that the college would likely be admitting fewer Ph.D. students but had yet to say exactly how many. She pointed to an uncertain research funding landscape and the increase to federal endowment tax as some of financial pressures the university is facing. Harvard announced last week that it ran a $113 million deficit in fiscal year 2025.

Several universities paused graduate student admissions earlier this spring when the Trump administration started cutting research grants. Since then, other universities have made cuts to their doctoral programs in an effort to curb costs.

Experts have warned that reducing the number of Ph.D. students could undermine universities’ broader operations, including undergraduate education, faculty support and the future of academic research, which is reliant on training the next generation of scholars.