More Uchicago plans are suspending new PhDs. Admission for the 2026-27 academic year.
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The University of Chicago’s Arts and Humanities is now suspending new doctoral degrees. Students in all departments for the 2026-27 academic year except for philosophy and a program. The move expanded last week’s president’s announcement that about half of the departments would stop enrolling students while the rest would reduce enrollment.
Departments that do not accept PhD degrees now include students in the Department of Art History, Film and Media Studies, Classics, Comparative Literature, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, English and Literature, Germanic, Linguistics, Middle Eastern Studies, Romance and Literature, Slavic Languages and Literature, South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Department of Music Ellymusicology and History and History of Music and Musics and Theory.
The Ministry of Social Sciences also announced that it would not admit doctoral degrees. Students enter four programs in 2026-27: anthropology, political economy, social thought, and scientific concepts and historical research. Uchicago Crown Family Social Work, Policy and Practice College earlier Announced that doctoral degrees are being suspended. Admissions and Harris School of Public Policy said it is suspending admissions to Dr. Harris. (In Public Policy Research), PhD in Political Economy, and a Master in Public Policy with a Certificate in Research Methods.
These announcements reflect how deeply indebted universities deal with budget issues. But Uchigago is just one of several highly selective universities, including Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania — announced over the past year that they are freezing or shrinking their doctorate degrees. Amid financial stress and other factors, admissions and planning.
Uchicago has established a faculty committee to plan changes in the arts and humanities sectors in the summer. But on August 12, Dean Deborah Nelson announced the initial pause and stressed that “this decision is not the recommendation of any committee.”
Then on Wednesday, Nelson wrote a new email, and got Internal advanced ED, The revised plan was announced “based on strong recommendations from the PhD committee and department chairs.”
“After the announcement last week, I met with all department chairs and consulted the PhD Program Committee led by faculty,” Nelson wrote. “Almost all faculty leaders agreed that they would not only attract students to a certain number of departments, but would rather the department stop more broadly, so we can spend the time this year to collectively evaluate and better address the challenges we face.”
A department chairperson who requested not to be named confirmation Internal Advanced ED That chair met with the dean last Friday to discuss Pause, most department chairs agree that it should be applied Throughout the department, more collaborative work can be done over the academic year on the future of the PhD. Education in Uchigago.
Nelson also wrote in an email Wednesday: “She heard from many faculty that initial decisions caught them off guard. The timing of my initial announcement about the PhD cohort was partly driven by deadlines to submit information to the software platform, which will enable our decisions to open our plans to ensure our community is open to those decisions.
A university spokesperson briefly stated in an email: “As Dean Nelson pointed out in the email, the decision to modify the PhD program in the Arts and Humanities in the 2026-27 academic year was based on strong advice from the PhD committee and department chairs.
Robert O. Anderson (Robert O. Internal Advanced ED On Thursday, “We easily have resources to support the humanities without causing a reduction disproportionately to the role of the humanities in the financial crisis.”
“We are in a unique position to be a resource-rich university, and have been so reckless about our resources, and now we have to make decisions as if we were a poor university,” Ando said.
