This piece is a developing story. The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and this article will reflect all new information that becomes available.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the cancellation of military attendance at Ivy League and other elite universities, starting in the 2026-2027 academic year, in a video released Friday afternoon on X, formerly Twitter.
Hegseth said the change would affect “Princeton, Columbia, MIT, Brown, Yale, and many others.” Though Cornell was not explicitly mentioned, Cornell was on a preliminary list of institutions at risk of losing military tuition assistance eligibility, according to information originally reported by CNN earlier this month.
Hegseth previously canceled all professional military education, certificate programs and fellowships with Harvard on Feb 6.
In the Friday video, Hegseth said that he made the decision because the American military has “been poisoned from within by a class of so-called ‘elite universities,’ who have abused their privilege and access to this department and utterly betrayed their purpose.”
"Cornell University has proudly educated active-duty military and veterans since its founding and is the only Ivy League institution designated a Purple Heart University for supporting veterans injured in combat,” a University spokesperson wrote to The Sun.
“In addition to a robust ROTC program, Cornell has long enrolled senior military officers in graduate business, law, and engineering programs. We remain committed to educating senior military officers, who are valued members of our campus community," the spokesperson wrote.
Hegseth, who attended Princeton as an undergraduate and Harvard for his master’s in public policy, added that Ivy League universities have “gorged themselves on a trust fund of American taxpayer dollars only to become factories of anti-American sentiment and military disdain,” while teaching curriculum that “seeks to hollow out their warrior ethos and replace it with a creed of globalist submission.”
This order follows Hegseth's move to bar the use of military tuition assistance for graduate programs at dozens of top universities. A preliminary list compiled by the U.S. Army classified Cornell as being at “moderate to high risk” of losing eligibility due to alleged “bias” against the military.
Military tuition assistance provides service members up to $4,500 a year to help cover the costs of graduate-level education. Then, the Tuition Assistance Top-Up program works to bridge the gap. It covers the remaining tuition costs that exceed $4,500 at more expensive universities. More than 230,000 service members utilize the assistance provided by these programs.
Undergraduate programs, ROTC and the GI bill will be unaffected.
Atticus Johnson is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a senior writer for the News department and can be reached at ajohnson@cornellsun.com.
