Earlier this month, Harvard announced that it would accept significantly fewer students to its graduate programs, one of the many cost-saving measures it has implemented in response to the Trump administration threatening billions of dollars in University funding.
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: in the undergraduate classes that currently rely on their instruction, in the fields their research could have propelled forward, and, perhaps most importantly, in the generations to come that will suffer an absence of qualified educators. Trump’s attacks have irrevocably altered the playing field for academia, and it may never recover.
At Harvard, several departments have downsized by more than 50 percent. Some, like Sociology and German, won’t admit any students in the 2027-28 academic year. As of now, these changes only extend to the next two admissions cycles. However, it’s not clear that they won’t continue beyond then.
In an email, Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra wrote that the reduction in cohort sizes would be concurrent with an evaluation of “the future model of Ph.D. education,” adding that the FAS had only decided to continue admitting Ph.D. “after careful deliberation.” In other words, there is no guarantee that Ph.D. programs will ever return to their original sizes in coming years — if they even exist at all.
The Democratic party's Harvard branch is going to shrink...