Readers may remember the following chart. Bear it in mind.

Here’s a summary from Chris Brunet of the cuts:

According to the Crimson report, which quotes five anonymous faculty sources, the reductions are as follows:

  • Science PhD admissions slashed by more than 75%
  • Arts & Humanities cut by about 60%
  • Social Sciences reduced 50–70%
  • History down 60%
  • Biology down 75%
  • The German department will lose all PhD seats
  • Sociology will go from six students to zero

In addition to slashing PhD admissions, FAS has also instituted a hiring freeze for full-time staff, announced it would keep its budget flat for fiscal year 2026, and ceased work on all “non-essential capital projects and spending.”

These austerity measures follow a wave of layoffs across other Harvard schools, including the T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Kennedy School of Government, the School of Dental Medicine, and the Graduate School of Design.

I urge you to read Chris’s entire article, but I’ll summarize part of it:

  • Harvard lost 113 million on operations last year BUT made 4 billion in its endowment, which stands at 56.9 billion.
  • 2025 has so far been a record year for donations: 629 million, up from 528 million last year, and 2025 isn’t over yet.
  • Trump promised to restore 2.4 billion in frozen grants IF Harvard runs some trade schools for automotive plant, motors and engines.

Anyway, obviously Harvard can afford to make up its operating deficit of 113 million and doesn’t need to cut Ph.D. admissions. Making up for grants out of its own pocket would be harder, but not impossible, since 4 billion (its endowment gain) is more than 2.4 billion. The reason for the endowment is so that Harvard can, when times are bad, for whatever reason, continue to operate normally. Since the next administration may reverse Trump’s policies, it makes sense to just keep going for now. If it turns out that Trump’s policies are a bi-partisan consensus, then Harvard should make adjustments.

Harvard is, as Chris notes, acting very much as if it is an endowment fund with a university, and not a university with an endowment fund. Instead of using the endowment to protect the university, it is protecting the endownment with cuts to the university.

Now this is just Harvard. The Crimson article has this lovely quote:

The reduction in admissions slots puts a figure to FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra’s announcement in late September that the school would be admitting Ph.D. students at “significantly reduced levels.” Hoekstra cited uncertainty around research funding and an increase to the endowment tax — which could cost Harvard $300 million per year — as sources of financial pressure.

Hoekstra also wrote in her message that the FAS decided to continue admitting Ph.D. students only “after careful deliberation.” She noted that many peer institutions paused Ph.D. admissions altogether, suggesting the FAS may have considered a complete halt in line with its peers. (my emphasis)

Wait. A complete halt at many other universities? No new Ph.D. students?

So, OK, the US is DONE. DONE. OVER. OK? They’re mass cutting universities admissions and research at the same time as China is pulling away, funding its universities even more? This is some of the sheerest stupidity I have ever seen. Right wing ‘tards hate universities, so they’re going to cut America’s throat.

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I get also that we’re in a profoundly anti-intellectual, culture hating period where the idea that history, literature, languages and social sciences matter has given way to chants of “STEM, STEM, STEM!” but note, for example, that biology is getting slashed and that most of the research cuts and freezes are in the hard sciences. This as China has overtaken the US in biotech and is poised to overtake in pharma.

I cannot wrap my mind around how stupid and foolish this all is. It’s not that American universities don’t need fixing. If I were in charge I’d probably force them to keep faculty and student numbers up and reduce administrative bloat by at least half in 2 years. I’d also force every university to restore control to the faculty senate, and make it so that if you aren’t a faculty member (and teaching plus either writing or researching) you cannot have any actual authority. There’s also a question of research cost padding, but the solution to that isn’t wholesale cuts at the exact moment when one is in peer competition with a challenger.

But this sort of insanity, of reducing or outright cutting the pipeline of future scholars and scientists is outright deranged and self destructive to a remarkable degree.

As for Harvard, the people who run it are scum, who have lost sight of the fact that the endowment serves the university. I cry few tears for Harvard, the people it graduates are usually conformist careerists. But Harvard is the bell-weather for all US universities, if this is happening even at Harvard, what is happening down the chain?

America’s in trouble, and that trouble could be used to fix things. But all Trump is doing is tearing everything down, generally in the stupidest way possible.