“My commitment to the United States and to the U.S. Constitution is larger than any one administration,” one undergraduate student in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at Princeton told The Daily Princetonian.
The student, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing their military career, emphasized that their statements were not made on behalf of Princeton’s ROTC. Throughout the interview, they continued to select their words carefully.
“I’ve had the tremendous privilege of knowing so many fantastic students at Princeton, who I know will become extraordinary military leaders. And I think that it would be a massive shame if that potential was eliminated,” the student said in response to an announcement that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 made on Feb. 27. In a video posted on social media, Hegseth announced that the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) will end sponsorship for graduate students at Princeton and other Ivy League institutions beginning in the 2026–27 academic year.
“We’re done paying for the privilege of our enemies’ wicked ideologies to be taught to our future leaders,” Hegseth said in the video. He also claimed that top institutions have “gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars.”
Though the policy does not directly affect ROTC undergraduate students, a number of current ROTC cadets will enter active-duty service under the current administration after graduation. An active-duty graduate student in the School of Public and International Affairs previously declined a request for comment.
In addition to Hegseth’s video, an official memo from the DOD wrote that they will eliminate “certain Senior Service College Fellowship (SSC) programs for the 2026–2027 academic year and beyond,” though currently-enrolled students would be able to finish their course of study. The SCC is a program through the DOD that finances higher-level active-duty service members to attend graduate programs and continue their service in the military.
The DOD memo includes a list of schools where SSC fellowships for the 2026–2027 school year have been canceled. According to the list, one fellowship will be canceled at Princeton, whereas other schools with larger graduate programs have more student admissions canceled. At Harvard, 21 student fellowships have been terminated, and a total of 93 fellowships across 22 institutions will be canceled.
The DOD declined to comment beyond the contents of the memo.
University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that there are “a dozen active-duty military graduate students currently enrolled at Princeton, representing all four branches of the U.S. Armed services with all but two of those students enrolled at SPIA.” The Master in Public Affairs in SPIA is fully funded by the University, and additional need-based funds are available for living expenses. As the policy currently stands, active-duty service members may be unable to attend Princeton for graduate school while remaining in service.
In announcing the cancellations, Hegseth cited student “indoctrination” at elite institutions that “undermine the very values they are sworn to defend.”
“They have replaced the study of victory and pragmatic realism with the promotion of wokeness and weakness,” Hegseth said in the Feb. 27 video.
Professor of History Kevin Kruse disagreed with Hegseth’s characterizations. In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Kruse described Hegseth’s critique of “wokeness” at elite universities as a “lazy insult.” Since the start of his second term in office, President Donald Trump has attacked higher education universities and Ivy League schools using this same logic, suspending dozens of research grants at “woke” programs, criticizing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and questioning free speech on campuses across the country.
Hegseth “has thrown out this charge of wokeness without any substantiation for what that means,” Kruse told the ‘Prince.’ “It seems like an empty buzzword.”
Kruse said that if Princeton’s history department followed the Trump administration’s view of history, it would lead to a telling of American history that “only talks about the strengths and not the flaws.”
“That’s not history, that’s propaganda, and that’s not what we do,” Kruse said. “If you’re talking about training military leaders, they’re going to need to know the failures as well as the successes, if only to try not to repeat them, if only to be aware of the consequences.”
“That’s not being woke, that’s being aware of reality,” Kruse added.
Retired colonel Doug Lovejoy GS ’68, who formerly served as the commander of the Princeton Army ROTC unit, underscored the divisive nature of Hegseth’s commentary. “It’s not an ‘either/or,’ ‘liberal versus conservative,’” Lovejoy told the ‘Prince.’
The anonymous ROTC student agreed that the new policy decision “doesn’t seem the most unifying” and “creates a divisive ‘us versus them’ mentality that is not conducive to a strong, cohesive, diverse military.”
The student added that programs that send military personnel to top universities help bridge the gap between military and civilian populations and prevent echo chambers from forming “to ensure that our military leaders are in tune with the population that they serve and defend.” Conservative students also derive benefits from encountering different perspectives at predominantly liberal universities, even if they are in the political minority, the student noted.
“If you are a strong, conservative individual in a liberal institution like Princeton, it strengthens your ability to reason, to critically think about issues, and to encounter conflict, which is the complete nature of a military profession,” they said.
Kruse said that the Democratic party currently has a “more supportive approach to teaching” than the climate created by the Trump administration, pointing to the current administration’s severing of research grants, as well as book bans in states like Florida.
That’s why, for Kruse, professors may align more strongly against the current administration. “It’s not that there are a bunch of dedicated Democrats who rush into academia as a means of advancing the cause. It’s rather that they’re educators first and looking around for which party best reflects their values,” he said.
War veteran Raymond DuBois ’72, who recently spoke to the ‘Prince’ after Hegseth’s initial Feb. 6 announcement regarding the termination of fellowships at Harvard, discussed his views about the latest changes. He believes that the true purpose of Hegseth’s new policy is to “curry favor.”
“As long as Hegseth thinks he’s getting mileage in the Oval [Office], he will continue to do this,” DuBois said. “You will note the professional production values of his videos. The lighting is perfect, the audio is perfect, his makeup is perfect.”
DuBois also pointed to the number of senior military officials, both past and present, who attended the targeted universities.
“Did Hegseth bother to ask his senior military officers what their opinions might be with respect to this policy?” DuBois asked. “Because guess what? Three of the current serving chiefs of staff all went to the Kennedy School,” referring to the public policy graduate school at Harvard.
“Certainly, the presence of active duty military in our graduate programs, when we’ve had them, has been a benefit to our scholarly communities,” Kruse said. “This just struck me as a misguided effort to inflict some kind of punishment on Princeton, which is only going to hurt members of the military themselves.”
The ROTC undergraduate echoed concerns that this policy would put military members “at a disadvantage” and give their civilian counterparts a “leg up.”
“Princeton will continue with or without the military’s support. It’ll continue to produce world leaders,” the student said. “It’s important that the military has a seat at that table.”
Devon Rudolph is the head Podcast editor and a senior News writer. She is from Fairfax, Va. She can be reached at devonr[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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