U Chicago Freezing PhD Admissions for Multiple Humanities Programs
“UChicago, which faces debt issues, has become yet another example of well-known universities freezing or scaling back Ph.D. admissions and programs amid financial pressures and other factors.”
Haven’t American schools been handing out too many PhDs in recent years, anyway?
Inside Higher Ed reports:
UChicago Reducing, Freezing Ph.D. Admissions for Multiple Humanities Programs
The University of Chicago’s Arts and Humanities Division is reducing how many new Ph.D. students it admits for the 2026–27 academic year across about half of its departments and completely halting Ph.D. admissions elsewhere. Multiple language programs are among those affected.
In a Tuesday email that Inside Higher Ed obtained, Arts and Humanities dean Deborah Nelson told faculty, staff and Ph.D. students, “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.” The university didn’t tell Inside Higher Ed how many fewer Ph.D. students would be accepted across those departments.
“Other departments will pause admissions,” Nelson wrote.
Andrew Ollett, an associate professor of South Asian languages and civilizations, said that means no new Ph.D. students for these 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.
While the university didn’t provide an interview or respond to multiple written questions, a spokesperson did point out that the UChicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice is also pausing Ph.D. admissions, while the Harris School of Public Policy is pausing admissions for the Harris Ph.D., the political economy Ph.D. and the master of arts in public policy with certificate in research methods.
“A small number of PhD and master’s programs at the University of Chicago will pause admissions for the 2026–2027 academic year while divisions and schools undertake comprehensive reviews of the programs’ missions and structures,” UChicago said in a statement. It said the aim is “ensuring the highest-quality training for the next generation of scholars” and the pauses “will not affect currently enrolled students.”
UChicago, which faces debt issues, has become yet another example of well-known universities freezing or scaling back Ph.D. admissions and programs amid financial pressures and other factors. In November, before Trump retook the presidency, Boston University said it was pausing accepting new Ph.D. students in a dozen humanities and social sciences programs, including philosophy, English and history. In February, the Universities of Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh announced pauses, following other institutions.
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Comments
Are they really getting that many PhD program applications for South Asian languages and civilizations or Cinema and Media Studies or ethnomusicology? (Just to name a few)
Should there be more than one or two of those awarded in a decade?
You have a message from Admiral Ackbar…
Could this be the hard left faculty pulling up the ladder after themselves, now that non-leftoids have a fighting chance to be admitted to these programs?
Makes sense, but they also need to cut down on STEM PhD admissions—and not just at the U of C.
You don’t like the United States having by far the best military technology to the point state of the art 20th century tech Russia kept in storage ready to use whenever looks like a joke in comparison, the best medical care possible, and advances in medicine going so fast that early viability is making arguments for abortion obsolete you don’t like that?
The reason humanities committed suicide by adopting woke is because we could do without it.
We can’t do without engineers, biologists, geologists etc.
You clearly haven’t been hanging around STEM departments in the past few years.
I won’t go all hands-on hips, and argumentative like Danny. I will just ask this: why you were PhD in real subjects?
“Oh, the humanities!”
with apologies to Herb Morrison.