US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has directed military officers to stop attending professional education and fellowship programmes at 22 universities worldwide. This comes as part of changes to the Pentagon’s approved list of Professional Military Education (PME) institutions for advanced military training, which now include artificial intelligence (AI) and space. The decision was outlined in a recent memo that removes several Senior Service College fellowship programmes, effective for the 2026–2027 academic year.The cancelled list includes universities such as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon, and Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. The move follows Hegseth’s earlier decision to end professional military education partnerships with Harvard, citing concerns that some institutions on the list are “anti-American”.
Full list of universities Pentagon has cancelled for US Army officers
Here’s the list the US Department of War has cancelled for the US Army’s Senior Service College (SSC) fellowship programmes:
Total: 93 SSC fellowships cancelled across 22 institutions.
List of colleges Pentagon may partner for US Army programmes
The memo also proposes a new group of partner institutions, including Liberty University, George Mason University, Pepperdine University, the University of Tennessee, the University of Michigan, the University of Nebraska, the University of North Carolina, Clemson University, and Baylor University, even as several of the removed schools have previously collaborated with the US military on areas such as artificial intelligence research.
| S. No. | Institution Name | Category |
| 1 | The Citadel Military College of South Carolina | Senior Military College |
| 2 | University of North Georgia | Senior Military College |
| 3 | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | Senior Military College |
| 4 | Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies | DoW/USG Program |
| 5 | William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies | DoW/USG Program |
| 6 | Africa Center for Strategic Studies | DoW/USG Program |
| 7 | Liberty University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 8 | George Mason University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 9 | Pepperdine University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 10 | The University of Tennessee | Civilian Education Institution |
| 11 | University of Michigan | Civilian Education Institution |
| 12 | University of Nebraska | Civilian Education Institution |
| 13 | Iowa State University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 14 | University of North Carolina | Civilian Education Institution |
| 15 | Clemson University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 16 | Arizona State University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 17 | Baylor University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 18 | University of Florida | Civilian Education Institution |
| 19 | Regent University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 20 | Auburn University | Civilian Education Institution |
| 21 | Hillsdale College | Civilian Education Institution |
In the memo, the Pentagon wrote that “these institutions meet the following criteria: intellectual freedom, minimal relationships with adversaries, minimal public expressions in opposition of the department, and graduate-level national security, international affairs, and/or public policy programmes.”
