The Pentagon announced Friday that it will sever ties with Harvard University, ending all military training, fellowships and degree programs with the Ivy League institution.
This announcement represents the latest development in the Trump administration The long standoff with Harvard On White House demands for reforms at Ivy League school.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a statement on Friday that Harvard “no longer meets the needs of the Department of War or the military services.”
“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping that the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” Hegseth said. “Instead, too many of our officers have come back looking a lot like Harvard — heads full of globalist and extremist ideologies that do nothing to improve our fighting ranks.”
In a separate post on X, Hegseth wrote: “Harvard has woken up; the War Department has not.”
Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the Pentagon will discontinue professional military education at the graduate level, fellowships, and certificate programs, the statement said. Employees currently attending classes at Harvard will be able to finish those courses.
Similar programs will be evaluated at other Ivy League universities in the coming weeks, Hegseth said.
Hegseth earned a master’s degree from Harvard University but symbolically returned his diploma in a segment on Fox News in 2022. The Pentagon social media account, run by Hegseth’s office, resurfaced the clip in which Hegseth, then a Fox News commentator, returned the certificate and wrote “Return to Sender” on it in marker.
The Army offers its officers a variety of opportunities to obtain graduate-level education at Army-run military colleges as well as at civilian institutions such as Harvard University.
Broadly speaking, while opportunities to attend prestigious civilian schools provide less direct benefit to military careers for military service members than for their civilian counterparts, they help make the forces more attractive to employees once they leave the military.
Harvard has long been a major target of President Donald Trump in his administration’s campaign to subjugate the nation’s most prestigious universities. His officials cut billions of dollars in federal funding for research at Harvard and tried to stop him Registration of foreign students After the campus rejected a series of government demands last April.
The White House said it is punishing Harvard University for tolerating anti-Jewish bias on campus. Harvard leaders say they face illegal retaliation for failing to embrace the administration’s ideological views. Harvard University sued the administration in a pair of lawsuits. A federal judge issued orders to side with Harvard in both cases. Administration resumes.
Tensions eased over the summer as Trump teased a deal he said was just days away. That never materialized, and on Monday the president delved deeper, demanding $1 billion from Harvard as part of any deal to restore federal funding. This is double what he asked for before.
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