The U.S. Department of Defense will end its support of professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs at Harvard, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, M.P.P. ’13, announced in a video posted on X on February 6.
According to the video and a subsequent press release, the department will discontinue all Harvard “graduate-level professional military education”—a term typically referring to leadership training and development for the military—as well as Harvard “fellowships and certificate programs” for active-duty service members. The change will take effect beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, but military personnel who are already enrolled in such programs will be able to finish their studies.
Harvard has not issued a statement about the decision. The Department of Defense announcement does not appear to impact the University's undergraduate ROTC program, which currently enrolls 103 cadets and midshipmen. Professional schools like Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) that offer fellowships and funding opportunities for military affiliates to enroll in graduate studies seem likely to be most affected.
In the video, Hegseth said that the defense department will not “support an environment that’s destructive to [the] nation and the principles that the vast majority of Americans hold dear” and accused Harvard of tolerating antisemitism, promoting racial discrimination, and maintaining ties with the Chinese Communist Party.
“This department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” said Hegseth. “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.”
Harvard’s schools host a notable number of military-affiliated students. For example, HKS, which offers master’s and doctoral programs, enrolled more than 500 active-duty service members, reservists, and veterans over the past decade. As of November 2025, 8 percent of students enrolled in HKS degree programs had a U.S. military affiliation, according to the school’s website.
In July, the public policy school also unveiled a fellowship that will fund one-year master’s degrees for 50 veterans, adding to a host of existing funding opportunities for both veterans and active-duty military members.
Hegseth, who in a master’s thesis for HKS wrote that the U.S. should strive for “equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, class, geography, or gender,” chastised Harvard for using billions of dollars of federal funding to foster “hate-America activism.” Closing his five-minute video last Friday, he added, “We train warriors, not wokesters. Harvard, good riddance.”
