The US Department of Defense has removed 22 universities from its approved Professional Military Education (PME) list, effectively barring Army officers from attending Senior Service College (SSC) fellowship and other Pentagon-sponsored programmes at these institutions from the 2026–27 academic year.
The decision will invalidate 93 SSC fellowships that had been earmarked for these schools.
The directive was issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has spearheaded a broader overhaul of how the Pentagon approaches civilian academic partnerships. Officers will no longer be eligible for PME or fellowship programmes at the affected universities with Pentagon funding, representing a major shift in military education strategy.
Which institutes were affected?
Among the institutions removed from the PME list are several prestigious Ivy League and elite research universities, including Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Yale University, Columbia University and Princeton University. Other American universities on the list include Tufts University, Georgetown University, Brown University, Saint Louis University, Carnegie Mellon University, Middlebury College, George Washington University and the College of William and Mary.
The policy change also extends to a group of influential think tanks and international institutions. These include the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), The Brookings Institution, New America Foundation, Atlantic Council, Center for a New American Security, Council on Foreign Relations, The Henry L Stimson Center, and Johns Hopkins University’s SAIS West Space Scholars Program. One international partner affected is Queen’s University in Canada.
What criteria must institutions meet to align with Pentagon?
According to the Pentagon memo, future partner institutions must meet criteria such as “intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries, and minimal public expressions in opposition to the Department of Defense,” and must offer strong national security or public policy programmes aligned with Pentagon priorities.
Officials said officers already enrolled in programmes at the affected schools can complete their studies, but new placements under the cancelled fellowships will not be available.
As part of this shift, a revised list of potential new partner schools has also been proposed, with names such as Liberty University, George Mason University, Pepperdine University, University of Michigan and University of Florida mentioned as future options for PME programmes.