U.S. Rep. Ed Case is asking the Pentagon about recent reports that it is seeking to end tuition assistance to service members attending Hawaii Pacific University along with dozens of other schools across the country.
The Hawaii Democrat is requesting that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s office provide a response by Monday confirming or denying the reports, and, if true, provide an explanation for the move and put him in touch with a military official that he and HPU leadership can speak to about it.
Last week CNN reported that Hegseth ordered the military branches to “evaluate all existing graduate programs for active-duty members at Ivy League universities and any other universities that similarly diminish critical thinking and have significant adversary involvement.”
This comes after Hegseth announced the Pentagon will discontinue all graduate-level professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs at Harvard for active-duty service members beginning with the 2026-2027 academic year.
Hegseth charged in a video posted to social media that Harvard and many other universities “no longer live up to their founding principles, as bastions of free speech, open inquiry, and committed to the American values that make our country great,” and said the military would quickly review and make decisions about similar programs at other institutions.
CNN reported that a list prepared by the Army of schools at “moderate to high risk” of getting cut included HPU along with Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Boston College, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology among others.
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In a letter to Hegseth, Case wrote, “If true, such an action would harm not just the many service members who depend on the high-quality education provided by HPU to advance their professional knowledge and competence, not just the services’ recruitment and retention efforts, but also the critical and fragile military-civilian relationship which is key to (U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s) pursuit of our national defense goals in the Indo-Pacific.”
HPU has a long history
of running programs aimed at active-duty service
members, National Guard members, reservists and veterans. It is also a “satellite school” for University of Hawaii’s ROTC programs, with some cadets and midshipmen receiving their military training and education at UH to receive their officer’s commission while opting to pursue their degrees at HPU.
The university offers master’s programs in diplomacy and military studies, diplomacy and global security,
cybersecurity and data science, and counts seasoned military veterans and other retired national security officials among its faculty.
“Any claim that HPU’s programs ‘diminish critical thinking’ or have ‘significant adversary involvement’ … is specious at best,” Case wrote
Some military and intelligence officials have raised concerns about American universities offering high-tech training to students aligned with hostile governments and empowering them to take those skills back home with them.
Among HPU’s program offerings is a Master of Science in artificial intelligence program translated into Mandarin that HPU’s website describes as “a comprehensive program designed to equip students in China with cutting-edge technologies and advanced data
analytical methods based on
AI/machine learning.”
Sending active duty
service members to graduate school has been seen as a critical recruiting and retention tool for the military, which routinely exchanges additional mandatory years in uniform to top performers in return for tuition assistance to top schools.
In addition to recruiting and retention, the benefit is also considered a way for U.S. military leaders to broaden their perspectives while also helping bridge the “civilian-military divide” at a time when less than 1% of Americans serve and many have little direct experience with the military.
“Removing HPU (or any other Hawai‘i institution of higher learning) from the list of universities eligible for
military funding will harm Hawai‘i military-civilian
relationships at a key juncture where enhanced, not diminished, partnerships are critical to renewing our military’s expiring military training and other land leases and to continuing to repair the harm caused by the Red Hill fuel spill,” Case wrote. “Hawai‘i residents support HPU and will not believe any claim that HPU is pursuing actions that run counter to the core values of the military. They (and I) will therefore conclude that the Army’s actions are arbitrary and without any justification, undermining efforts to convince the public that the military can be trusted as an honest and committed partner in Hawaii’s present and future.”
Hegseth has been vocal about his desire to reshape the culture of the military, aggressively working to purge programs and ideas he regards as “woke,” such as promoting diversity and what he calls “climate change worship.”
Last year, he ordered all the military academies to identify and remove books from their libraries that contain “divisive concepts” that he says are now “incompatible with the department’s core mission.”
Several key political appointees in President Donald Trump’s national security team hold degrees from the universities Hegseth seeks to cut ties with. Hegseth himself attended and received degrees from both Princeton and Harvard.
Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, attended HPU while serving in the Hawaii Army National Guard and in 2009 graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration with a concentration in international business. Gabbard was honored as the university’s 2018 Paul T. C. Loo Distinguished Alumni.