Harvard at a Glance
Established
1636
Faculty
About 2,400 faculty members and more than 10,400 academic appointments in affiliated teaching hospitals
Students
Harvard College – About 6,700
Graduate and professional students – About 14,500
Total – About 21,000
School Color
Living Alumni
More than 323,000, over 271,000 in the U.S., nearly 52,000 in some 201 other countries. See the alumni website for more information.
HONORs
47 Nobel Laureates, 32 heads of state, 48 Pulitzer Prize winners
Motto
Veritas (Latin for “truth”)
Real Estate Holdings
5,083 acres
Library Collection
The Harvard Library—the largest academic library in the world—includes 18.9 million volumes, 174,000 serial titles, an estimated 400 million manuscript items, 10 million photographs, 56 million archived web pages, and 5.4 terabytes of born-digital archives and manuscripts. Access to this rich collection is provided by nearly 1,000 library staff members who operate more than 70 separate library units.
Faculties, Schools, and an Institute
Harvard University is made up of 11 principal academic units – ten faculties and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The ten faculties oversee schools and divisions that offer courses and award academic degrees.
UNDERGRADUATE COST AND FINANCIAL AID
Families with students on scholarship pay an average of $11,500 annually toward the cost of a Harvard education. More than 65 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is $46,000.
Since 2007, Harvard’s investment in financial aid has climbed by more than 70 percent, from $96.6 million to $166 million per year.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, students from families with incomes below $65,000, and with assets typical for that income level, will generally pay nothing toward the cost of attending Harvard College. Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0 to 10 percent of income, depending on individual circumstances. Significant financial aid also is available for families above those income ranges.
Harvard College launched a “net price calculator” into which applicants and their families can enter their financial data to estimate the net price they will be expected to pay for a year at Harvard. Please use the calculator to estimate the net cost of attendance.
The total 2015-2016 cost of attending Harvard College without financial aid is $45,278 for tuition and $60,659 for tuition, room, board and fees combined.
University Professors
24 'individuals of distinction'
Harvard University President
This photograph is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license by Harvard University.
Drew Gilpin Faust
University Income (Fiscal Year 2013)
$4.2 billion
University Expenses (Fiscal Year 2013)
$4.2 billion
Endowment (Fiscal Year 2014)
$36.4 billion
Harvard University Shields
Naming
The name Harvard comes from the college’s first benefactor, the young minister John Harvard of Charlestown. Upon his death in 1638, he left his library and half his estate to the institution established in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Harvard Campaign
The Harvard Campaign is designed to embrace the future and to ensure Harvard’s leadership as it approaches its fifth century of education and inquiry in the pursuit of enduring truth.
HarvardX
HarvardX, a University-wide effort to support faculty innovation in teaching and learning, has engaged more than 70 faculty from across 10 schools, producing online learning experiences that have reached more than 1,000,000 students from 195 countries around the world.
More Information
These numbers come from many sources, including the Harvard University Fact Book and the Annual Financial Report to the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. Sign up for the Daily Gazette to receive highlights about faculty news, research projects, staff developments, student life, and daily events in your inbox.
