College Yield Drops 3 Percent Since 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

To Promote Healthy Habits in Patients, Start with the Doctors

Why Harvard Medical School is training physicians to think more like coaches

Discoveries: Chronic Pain, Cocoa Shortages, and Making Old Lungs Young

Harvard researchers investigate climate’s impact on cocoa crops, innovations in nasal vaccines, and links between pain and skull marrow.

AI Helps Human Caregivers Reframe Patient Experiences

But it can’t replace human connection.

Most popular

Harvard Academic Workers Begin Strike

A second union joined graduate students on the picket line, emptying labs and classrooms.

New Names Proposed for Harvard Extension School Degrees

Long pushed for, the changes would be part of a broader rebranding for the Division of Continuing Education.

Remembering Judge Richard A. Posner

Contributing editor Lincoln Caplan’s 2015 feature of the prolific judge

Explore More From Current Issue

Black and white portrait of a woman with medium-length hair, smiling softly.

The outgoing executive director and Harvard Business School graduate went from dancing The Nutcracker to growing a ballet company.

Two fans celebrate in front of a TV showing a football game.

A new Harvard Kennedy School project aims to harness the power of feral fandom.

A woman jogs on a path beside a boy riding a bicycle, surrounded by trees.

Why Harvard Medical School is training physicians to think more like coaches