Military officers may quickly discover dozens of top schools and universities throughout the United States abruptly off limits for tuition help as a part of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s marketing campaign in opposition to schools he describes as being biased in opposition to the US army and sponsoring “troublesome partnerships with foreign adversaries.”
The uncertainty about tuition help and eligible packages for Defense Department funding has led to confusion and concern amongst service members who’ve already utilized or been accepted to those schools. Officials additionally mentioned they had been involved it amounted to an try and purge variety of thought from the army.
The coverage was rolled out in a memo signed by Hegseth final week saying that starting with the 2026-2027 college yr, the Pentagon can be severing its relationship with Harvard University and discontinuing all graduate-level skilled army schooling, fellowships and certificates packages there for active-duty service members.
Hegseth ordered the army companies to “evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty members at Ivy League universities and any other universities that similarly diminish critical thinking and have significant adversary involvement, and determine whether they deliver cost-effective, strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to public universities and military masters programs,” in keeping with a supply aware of the memo.
The steerage’s broad terminology has injected confusion and concern into the army branches, who’ve begun to compile lists of schools and universities that may have a average to excessive danger of being impacted, that means the Pentagon wouldn’t fund any service members’ greater schooling there.
A preliminary checklist of at-risk schools compiled by the Army for troops enrolling in legislation college and reviewed by NCS characterizes the next schools as being at “moderate to high risk” of being banned: American University, Boston College, Boston University, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western University, Columbia University, College of William and Mary, Cornell University, Duke, Emory, Florida Institute of Technology, Fordham, Georgetown, George Washington University, Harvard, Hawaii Pacific University, Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, MIT, Northeastern University, Northwestern University, New York University, Pepperdine, Princeton, Stanford, Tufts, University of Miami, University of Pennsylvania, University of Southern California, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Washington University in St Louis, and Yale.
A supply aware of Hegseth’s steerage instructed NCS that the implication is that “graduate programs for highest performing officers and non-commissioned officers are almost certainly at risk.” This supply and a army official added that it has created intensive uncertainty inside the companies about methods to proceed with making use of for superior civil education, together with top legislation packages, medical packages, and nuclear engineering packages.
The Office of the Secretary of Defense referred NCS to the companies for remark. The Army didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Several top political appointees on the Pentagon, together with Hegseth himself, are graduates of Ivy League schools or different top universities. Hegseth attended Princeton and Harvard; Deputy Defense Secretary Steve Feinberg attended Princeton; Army Secretary Dan Driscoll obtained his legislation diploma from Yale; Navy Secretary John Phelan holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and accomplished a normal course diploma in economics and worldwide relations on the London School of Economics
The steerage was first talked about publicly in a video Hegseth posted on social media final week, in which he bashed Harvard and different American universities which have “pervasive institutional bias” saying they “no longer live up to their founding principles, as bastions of free speech, open inquiry, and committed to the American values that make our country great.”
“In two weeks time, components of all of our departments — Army, Navy, and Air Force — will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active duty service members at all Ivy League universities, and other civilian universities,” Hegseth mentioned.
Educational packages and alternatives are a key recruiting and retention device for the army companies, typically exchanging obligatory years in uniform for tuition help to top schools in the nation. Graduate packages have been lauded as a solution to academically sharpen US army personnel, preserving the very best and brightest in uniform, whereas additionally permitting them to take a position in their futures after they’ve left army service.
Eligible schools are sometimes these accredited by the foremost associations for these specialties. For qualifying service members who want to go to legislation college, for instance, schools are usually thought of eligible for the Army to pay for them if they’re accredited by the American Bar Association. The Armed Forces Health Professions Scholarship Program covers tuition for medical, dental, nursing, and psychology college students in return for one yr of active-duty service for every year of help. For medical packages, the army usually requires that the varsity is accredited by the American Medical Association or American Osteopathic Association.
The vagueness of the memo has additionally raised concern that tuition help may very well be impacted, which active-duty service members can use for different graduate or certification packages in their off-duty time that aren’t essentially associated to their day-to-day jobs. Service members can enroll in enterprise administration programs, for instance, or communication and advertising and marketing.
But the army additionally has intensive partnerships with numerous universities and schools for skilled army schooling alternatives. The Space Force, for instance, announced in 2023 a partnership with Johns Hopkins, which was included on the Army’s tentative checklist of universities which might be thought of in danger.
The army official mentioned the steerage was akin to prohibiting officers from acquiring a top tier schooling, and mentioned it amounted to the Pentagon “attempting to purge intellect, diversity of thinking, and critical thought from the military.”
“The overall concern is that we want military officers and non-commissioned officers to have the ability to critically think and challenge ideas … and some of these institutions are great places to do that whether you agree with liberal or conservative thought or not,” mentioned the supply aware of the matter. “It seems both very delicate — oh these words and ideas scare me, so I’ll preclude people from engaging — but also short-sighted and is generating confusion.”
Hegseth has been intensely targeted on reshaping the tradition of the army since taking workplace final yr, which has concerned every part from including a secondary title for the Department of Defense because the “Department of War” to coverage shifts which have deeply impacted servicemembers, like a ban on transgender troops and an analysis of whether or not ladies ought to service in fight roles.
Last yr, he additionally ordered all army academies to establish and take away books from their libraries that take care of points akin to race, gender ideology, and different “divisive concepts” that at the moment are thought of “incompatible with the department’s core mission,” in keeping with a memo he signed on the time.
Hegseth’s newest warfare on Harvard and different top universities has additionally mirrored one waged by President Donald Trump, who during the last yr has focused federal funding, analysis grants, and pupil visas at elite universities throughout the nation — starting with Harvard— until they comply together with his calls for to dismantle Diversity, Equity and Inclusion packages and crackdown on pro-Palestine pupil protesters and antisemitism on campuses.