The Department of Philosophy at Georgetown University will not be accepting any PhD students for the 2026-2027 academic year.
The decision is owed to “budget constraints” and was directed by the College of Arts & Sciences at Georgetown.
It is expected that admissions will resume for fall of 2027.
The Hoya reports:
The department announced the decision in a Dec. 22 email to applicants, one week after the Dec. 15 application deadline. The announcement came after university officials announced Dec. 12 that Georgetown has reduced doctoral enrollment amid ongoing budget cuts and a decline in graduate tuition revenue…
Interim University President Robert M. Groves announced Dec. 9 that the university recorded a 23% decline in the number of students starting graduate applications and a 20% drop in international graduate student enrollment. Groves has cited federal cuts to higher education funding, changing immigration policies and ending graduate loan programs as reasons for the declines.
In an email to applicants breaking the news, John Greco, the department’s director of graduate admissions, wrote:
I sincerely apologize for the late timing of this decision, which I understand is extremely frustrating for many reasons, not least because of the time and effort that goes into building a graduate admissions application. For different reasons, this is all deeply frustrating for the Admissions Committee and the Philosophy Department as well. That said, I do believe that Georgetown’s administration is acting with good will to negotiate difficult circumstances.
Georgetown is not the first philosophy graduate program to announce it was cutting back on admissions for the next year. Harvard is temporarily reducing the size of its incoming class. Rutgers is not accepting any applicants. Others are listed on this spreadsheet.
(Reportedly, the Department of Philosophy is not the only department at Georgetown whose graduate admissions will be affected by the budget cuts, but I have not seen official news about that.)
Have they refunded any applications fees they’ve accepted?
I think they are in the middle of processing refunds.
There’s gonna be lot’s of “natural born” philosophers who simply don’t make it into the academy at all for reasons like this. The effect may cluster in aptitude for certain topics and subfields. Assumptions about discursive admissibility, seriousness, and deferral to expertise in high philosophic dialogue are going to be rewritten in the next few decades.
For what it’s worth, I don’t really believe in natural born philosophers, but just natural born smart people who would probably prosper in any number of areas. Of course, it’s a loss that these people are going to be prospering in those other areas.
well, the old debate as to whether there’s something specifically called philosophical aptitude isn’t going to be settled here. but I do agree with you that if you can succeed in philosophy there’s plenty of things you can succeed in
This is so sad, I’m sorry for all the applicants and for the department who won’t get a great new cohort. Hopefully brighter days are not far ahead.
It is unfortunate for those applicants. But at the same time, there are more philosophy PhD students than there are academic jobs. Competition amongst graduate students and new grads for jobs is fierce and soul killing. It is somewhat remiss to keep accepting applicants when universities cannot support them properly or that it is likely they will be able to get a job upon graduation. Not to mention that some PhD students are now taking 6+ years to graduate due to lack of motivation and general aimlessness (no job) it is clear that there is a cycle here that is not working.
is it so bad to get 6 years of funding to hang out and do and be taught philosophy? The job market is soul-crushing indeed, however.
It’s difficult for us PhD students, but isn’t it good for the profession? Taking only the best candidates from a larger pool results in better professors at the end of the day.
This reasoning risks overgeneralizing the relationship between exclusivity and quality. If your logic holds.. that restricting access automatically produces a “better” outcome by filtering for only the absolute most persistent.. then by way of reductio, we should cancel all PhD admissions for the next 50 years. By that standard, the single student admitted in 2076 would guarantee us the greatest philosopher in human history. In reality, you aren’t filtering for the “best”; you’re filtering for those with the independent wealth to wait out the pause.
I could be wrong but I think EWS is saying the opposite. They are saying that a large number of PhD students is good for the profession because with a larger pool of candidates the quality of professors will rise if we assume that the number of open positions stays the same regardless of the number of candidates.
Two remarks:
Your rationale makes sense but I want to disambiguate the supply of academic jobs from the demand for philosophy research and education. The former is likely the result of several factors, including budget, priorities, trends in university hiring practices.
On the other hand, the demand for philosophical skill seems very high (in industry and across academic disciplines), if not always recognized. I personally think Philosophy has a bit of self-imposed marketing problem.
Not training people for these skills risks a self-reinforcing cycle. Hindsight will be 20/20.
Pulled an all nighter (on different timezone) to apply for Georgetown, one of my top choices, only to get this. Dispiriting, and surely doesn’t bode well for the others.
University of Rochester did the same thing! They closed their PhD applications halfway through the application cycle and suddenly announced that they would not be admitting students, with no clear explanation of what happened.