Harvard University

Enrollment

Of 30,259 students enrolled in fall 2024, 8,844 were undergraduates and 21,415 graduate students. 25% studied exclusively online, students who don't need a bed near campus. Headcount fell by 127 from fall 2023 (−0.4%).

Housing the college controls

IPEDS counts 14,290 beds of institutionally controlled housing for 2024-25. That figure is the school's own capacity, on or off campus, so it includes halls the college leases or manages but not private buildings that simply market to students. Capacity shrank by 54 beds from the year before (14,344 in 2023-24). The school requires all full-time, first-time students to live in college housing, so the first-year class fills a known share of those beds every fall.

What students pay

The typical 2024-25 housing charge for a student sharing a room was $12,922 for the academic year, roughly $1,436 a month spread over nine months. Food added $8,268.

Those are the college's own figures. Private by-the-bed rents near campus can sit well above or below them, so check current asking rents before you underwrite a project.

How lenders read a campus like this

With 30,259 students, most of them full-time, the campus clears the 10,000-student minimum in Fannie Mae's Multifamily Guide for Dedicated Student Housing (Part III, Chapter 1, section 103.01, effective September 28, 2026). Under sections 103.01 and 103.03 a property still has to sit within 2 miles of the campus boundary or near a college-run transit line, have operated a full school year, and lease at least 80% of units for 12 months.

To size a specific property, use the student housing loan sizer. It works by the bed and shows which constraint sets the loan.

Among the 28 Massachusetts campuses on this site, Harvard University ranks number 7 by full-time students beyond college housing. See the Massachusetts table.

Other campuses in Cambridge

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 11,683 full-time, 8,180 beds