Summarised by Centrist
A Harvard student writer warns that cuts to the university’s Ph.D. programmes, made in response to threatened federal funding under Donald Trump’s administration, signal a potential collapse of the country’s higher education.
Khadija T. Khan, writing in The Harvard Crimson, says Harvard will accept significantly fewer graduate students after the White House threatened billions in federal support. Several departments, including Sociology and German, will take no new Ph.D. candidates in 2027–28.
She writes: “Some might be wondering why anyone should care if, for example, the number of Harvard history Ph.D.s drops from 13 to five. Although these cuts might not look important, they signify something far darker for higher education. A lack of Ph.D. students will be felt everywhere… Trump’s attacks have irrevocably altered the playing field for academia, and it may never recover.”
She warns that fewer Ph.D. candidates will lead to fewer professors, less research, and a lower standard of education overall. “Future generations won’t just get worse educations than their predecessors,” she writes. “They might not get any at all.”
Harvard, despite an endowment larger than the GDP of many countries, remains dependent on federal funds. The university says the cuts will continue while it reviews the “future model of Ph.D. education.” Khan concludes that if such restrictions can hit Harvard, “what’s stopping it from happening to everyone else?”
