Harvard is offering contingency plans for active-duty military applicants to its public policy graduate program after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the Pentagon was severing ties with several universities he described as “woke.”
Hegseth has said the military will end all training, fellowship, and certificate programs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Harvard is among 13 schools Hegseth listed, including New England schools such as Tufts University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brown University.
Some military applicants have asked whether they would still be able to attend if admitted. In a letter to those applicants this week, Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein said administrators are aware of the Pentagon’s decision to stop sending active-duty service members to Harvard.
Weinstein said admitted students could defer enrollment for up to four years, well past the end of a second Trump administration.
Applicants could also receive expedited admission consideration from peer institutions, including the Harris School at the University of Chicago, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and the Gerald R. Ford School at the University of Michigan.
“While we hope to welcome active-duty military students to HKS next year, we are fully committed to making sure you get the education you deserve, even if you cannot get it at HKS,” Weinstein wrote.
In a statement, Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, dean of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said the institution “deeply values the leadership, perspective, and public-service commitment that active-duty service members and veterans bring to our classrooms.”
“We recognize the uncertainty this may create for prospective students planning their graduate education,” he said.
Bueno de Mesquita said the school will offer expedited admissions review for active-duty service members admitted to the Kennedy School for the 2026-2027 academic year who may be affected by the Pentagon’s sudden decision.
“Military-affiliated students are vital to the Harris learning community, and we appreciate HKS including Harris among the small group of peer institutions offering an expedited review option for impacted applicants,” he said.
About 8% of the Kennedy School’s roughly 1,000 students come from the military.
Hegseth himself graduated from the program. Last week, shortly before strikes on Iran, he announced the plan to drop fellowships with the 13 universities in a video posted online, calling them “woke breeding grounds.”
That message caught many universities off-guard.
A spokesperson for MIT said the university stands by its long record in military education, noting that more than 12,000 officers have been commissioned through its programs and more than 150 have gone on to become generals or admirals. The university said it was surprised the administration would take those opportunities off the table.
Facing growing political and public scrutiny, Harvard and other selective colleges are trying to enroll more active-duty service members and military veterans.
This fall, the Kennedy School launched the largest scholarship campaign in its history aimed at bringing more veterans and public servants to Cambridge. School leaders say the effort is intended to broaden the range of opinions and perspectives on campus, amid mounting criticism that Harvard and other colleges are too liberal and expose students to too narrow a set of views.
