College Yield Drops 3 Percent During COVID-19

Some students have deferred their enrollment to next year. 

Entrance to the Harvard Office of Admissions and Financial Aid
The Office of Admissions and Financial Aid 
Photograph by Lydia Carmichael/Harvard Magazine

The College’s yield for the class of 2024, or the share of admitted students who indicated that they will attend Harvard, has dropped from 84 percent on May 1 to 81 percent, according to a University announcement made today. Some students have deferred their enrollment until next fall due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which accounts for the drop. 

Last year’s yield was 82.1 percent; the 84 percent yield earlier this year was the highest since the early 1970s. 

First-generation college students make up 18.7 percent of the incoming class, and 22.4 percent of them qualify for the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative’s policy of making the College tuition-free for students whose families earn less than $65,000. The class’s racial makeup is similar to what was already reported about the admitted class in March: 24.6 percent are Asian-American; 13.9 percent are African-American; 11.8 percent are Latinx; and 2 percent are Native American or Native Hawaiian. 

Find more of Harvard Magazine’s reporting on what the fall semester will look like here and here

Read more articles by: Marina N. Bolotnikova

You might also like

Artificial Intelligence in the Academy

Harvard symposium assesses the new technology.

How Does Hate Spread?

Harvard symposium probes antisemitic, Islamophobic sentiments

Sam Altman’s Vision for the Future

OpenAI CEO on progress, safety, and policy

Most popular

Sam Altman’s Vision for the Future

OpenAI CEO on progress, safety, and policy

How Does Hate Spread?

Harvard symposium probes antisemitic, Islamophobic sentiments

Artificial Intelligence in the Academy

Harvard symposium assesses the new technology.

More to explore

How is Artificial Intelligence Being Taught at Harvard?

A new Harvard course on artificial intelligence teaches students how to use the tool responsibly.

The Evolution of Human Fathers

Exploring the evolutionary biology of human fathers as caretakers

Civil War American Writer and Abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier

Homes of the poet and abolitionist, whose verses were said to have inspired Abraham Lincoln.