A new study shows that adding a small high‑momentum component from short–range correlations (SRCs) changes the stiffness of dense matter in opposite ways: * In pure neutron matter a 10 % SRC component makes the equation of state (EoS) stiffer. * In quarkyonic matter the same SRC fraction makes the EoS slightly softer, reducing the peak of the speed of sound at low densities and giving quarkyonic stars larger radii at low masses. The authors introduced a phenomenological form for the neutron momentum distribution that includes a depletion of the Fermi sea and a high‑momentum tail falling as 1/k⁴, fixing the SRC fraction at 10 %. They then calculated the quarkyonic EoS, solved the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equations, and produced mass–radius curves for neutron stars. The resulting speed‑of‑sound plot shows a pronounced peak in quarkyonic matter at modest densities; SRCs lower this peak and soften the EoS at higher densities. Correspondingly, the mass–radius diagram displays quarkyonic stars with SRCs having larger radii for low stellar masses, with the curves converging as the mass increases. These findings highlight the delicate role of SRCs in dense‑matter physics, but the analysis uses a fixed 10 % SRC strength and considers matter without beta equilibrium, leaving further exploration for future work.