UM Among Schools Pentagon May Ban from Military Tuition Aid

Military service members who are seeking tuition assistance to further their education at the University of Miami (UM) may need to reconsider.

According to leaked emails from the United States Department of War, formerly the Department of Defense (DoD), UM is among more than 30 schools where tuition aid may be banned for Judge Advocate General (JAG) officers (commissioned military officers who are also qualified attorneys) in its graduate programs. UM and the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne are the only two Florida schools that were “determined to be moderate to high risk schools and therefore ineligible for Army or Department of Defense funding.” Other universities on the list include Yale University, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, Princeton University, and New York University.

This memo was apparently issued to further U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign against universities he says are too woke, biased against the military, and sponsor “troublesome partnerships with foreign adversaries.” On February 6, Hegseth, who now goes by the Secretary of War, announced that the Department of Defense is “ending all professional military education, fellowships, and certificate programs” at Harvard beginning with the 2026-2027 school year. As part of his announcement, he teased that the department was also exploring ending relationships with other universities.

“With some exceptions, the Ivy League as a whole has pervasive institutional bias and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the coddling of toxic ideologies that undercuts our mission right here in this building,” Hegseth, a Princeton graduate himself who later received a master’s degree from Harvard in 2013, said in a video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “That is why in two weeks’ time, components of all of our departments — Army, Navy, and Air Force — will evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at all Ivy League universities and other civilian universities. The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost-effective strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to, say, public universities and our military graduate programs.”

A CNN report states that Hegseth’s new memo has raised concerns among service members applying to top law, medical, and nuclear engineering programs.

The UM website says the university participates in the DoD’s tuition assistance program, which “provides financial assistance to service members for voluntary off-duty education programs in support of professional and personal self-development goals.” A UM spokesperson did not respond to New Times‘ emailed requests for comment.

Here is the complete list of schools the Pentagon may ban from military aid:

• American University
• Boston College
• Boston University
• Brown University
• Carnegie Mellon
• Case Western University
• Columbia University
• College of William and Mary
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• Emory University
• Florida Institute of Technology
• Fordham University
• Georgetown University
• George Washington University
• Harvard University
• Hawaii Pacific University
• Johns Hopkins University
• London School of Economics and Political Science
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Northeastern University
• Northwestern University
• New York University
• Pepperdine University
• Princeton University
• Stanford University
• Tufts University
• University of Miami
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Southern California
• Vanderbilt University
• Wake Forest University
• Washington University in St. Louis
• Yale University