University Of Chicago Cutting Back Admissions In Several PhD Programs
In a email obtained by both The Chicago Tribune and Inside Higher Education, Arts and Humanities dean Deborah Nelson informed faculty and others in the division that 'we will accept a smaller overall Ph.D. cohort across seven departments: Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Music (composition), and Philosophy.'
How large the reduction in new Ph.D. students will be in those departments was not specified.
In addition, several other departments in the division will not accept new PhD students for the 2026-27 academic year. Citing Andrew Ollett, an associate professor of South Asian languages and civilizations at the university, Inside Higher Education reported that means there will be no new Ph.D. students for the following departments: classics, comparative literature, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern studies, Romance languages and literatures, Slavic languages and literatures, and South Asian languages and civilizations, plus the ethnomusicology and history and theory of music programs in the music department.
The cutbacks come about two months after Nelson had warned the division that federal policy changes and the university's ongoing financial difficulties would necessitate a reorganization, possible departmental consolidation and other changes to cut its costs.
'The status quo is not an option,' Nelson wrote to division faculty in a June 18 email reported by the Chicago Maroon, adding that, without making changes, the division risked becoming 'a pale, indecipherable version of what we once aspired to be.'
In that email, Nelson charged five working groups, involving 40 faculty and staff, to make recommendations for changes in the divisions's structure, language instruction, and graduate programs. However, according to Nelson's email this week, curtailing PhD admissions was not a recommendation made by any of those committees.
The decision to cut doctoral student admissions met with an outcry from many faculty. Clifford Ando, a professor of classics and history and a sharp critic of the university's spending priorities, wrote in the online magazine Compact that while it may be convenient to blame the university's financial struggles on the Trump administration's campaign against higher education, 'the true problem is the debased ideals of the university's leadership and the extraordinary debt it has taken on in pursuit of them. The university's trustees and leaders view it preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal. We are simply choosing not to be a university."
On its website, the university's Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice posted a message that is was pausing admissions to its doctoral program 'for one year while we undertake a comprehensive review.' Although a new cohort of PhD students will not be admitted for the 2026-27 academic year, the school plans to resume admissions for the 2027-2028 academic year.
'This pause will allow for a thoughtful and thorough review of the program, led by our faculty with the intention of strengthening the program to better serve future students and reflect the changing landscape of higher education and research careers,' the message added.
The Harris School of Public Policy will also not admit new graduate students in some of its programs for the 2026-2027 year. It will pause admissions for the Harris PhD, the PhD in political economy, and its master of arts in public policy with certificate in research methods. 'All existing commitments and support for current students will remain in place,' it posted.
The University of Chicago's cutbacks to PhD education will have many ramifications, not just for its faculty and students, but for higher education in general. Long respected for its scholarly rigor and commitment to a challenging undergraduate curriculum, the institution has become one of America's finest research universities. For it to take this large of a step back from doctoral education in the humanities and other fields will be viewed — at least symbolically — as a substantial diminishment of what great universities can and should represent.
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