FAS To Increase Ph.D. Admissions After Year of Steep Cuts

The Faculty of Arts and Science plans to increase Ph.D. admissions next year, partially reversing steep reductions imposed across its divisions this academic cycle, FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra announced Tuesday.

Hoekstra said at a Tuesday faculty meeting that the FAS is “on track” to admit more graduate students next year after cutting Ph.D. admissions by roughly half across its divisions last fall — one of the school’s most dramatic cost-saving measures as it worked to close a looming $365 million structural deficit.

The planned increase marks the latest retreat from a policy that drew swift backlash from faculty, especially in the Sciences Division, and generated months of tension within the FAS’s senior leadership.

“After a year of significant reductions in graduate admissions, we are now on track to increase our admissions levels next year,” Hoekstra said, adding that conversations with divisions were already underway.

FAS spokesperson James M. Chisholm confirmed that discussions with divisions are ongoing, but said the size of the admissions increase has not yet been determined.

The announcement suggests that the FAS may be emerging from the financial crisis on stronger footing than administrators initially expected. Over the past several months, Harvard has softened or reversed several austerity measures announced last year, including a pause on merit-based salary increases.

Hoekstra initially moved last fall to cut Ph.D. admissions by roughly 75 percent in the Sciences Division and by 60 percent in the Arts and Humanities Division, while several Social Sciences departments faced reductions between 50 and 70 percent.

But after intense pushback from faculty — including a letter signed by 100 science professors — and the return of Harvard’s federal funding last October, Hoekstra scaled back the reductions to roughly 50 percent.

The cuts quickly became one of the most contentious pieces of the FAS’s deficit-reduction plan. The Crimson revealed in February that Hoekstra had considered eliminating Ph.D. admissions entirely for the year — a proposal strongly opposed by then-Dean of Science Jeff W. Lichtman.

Hoekstra fired Lichtman in January after months of disagreement over the graduate admissions reductions.

The Ph.D. admissions cuts were part of a broader package of belt-tightening measures that also included a 25 percent reduction to non-tenure-track faculty budgets, a flat overall budget, and a pause on spending for non-essential capital projects.

Hoekstra said Tuesday that the FAS is moving ahead with exceptions to Harvard’s University-wide hiring freeze.

“We are moving forward with exception requests for new faculty searches across all three divisions, and the same is true for SEAS,” she said.

The school has also made progress on a fundraising push intended to offset the loss of graduate student slots by raising money for endowed Ph.D. fellowships. The FAS had raised $50 million out of a target $100 million in February. Hoekstra said Tuesday that the school is now nearly two-thirds of the way to that target and remains on track to meet it by the end of the academic year.

The FAS has already seen a banner year in fundraising, raising $222 million in the second half of fiscal year 2025 alone.

Still, the school has not abandoned all of its cost-cutting plans. Administrators are continuing with an effort to centralize staff positions across the FAS, a restructuring expected to involve layoffs.

“This work has been hard and the sacrifices have been real, but the goal to me is clear, and that is to put the FAS on sound financial footing that will allow us to plan,” Hoekstra said.

“Not just for the next two years, not just for the next decade, but for the next 400 years,” she added.

—Staff writer Abigail S. Gerstein can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at abbysg.97. Follow her on X @abbysgerstein.

—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at amannsm.38. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.