News

Expanding Yale College

Donors Will Have Transformative Impact

On June 6, 2008, members of the Yale Corporation convened in New Haven for their June meeting and the long-anticipated vote on the expansion of Yale College. With their unanimous assent, two new residential colleges are slated for construction and will allow Yale to expand the undergraduate student body by about 15 percent.

Along with this decision, the Corporation also voted to include the new residential colleges in the scope of the Yale Tomorrow campaign and raised the Campaign goal from $3 billion to $3.5 billion by September 2011.

Said Yale President Richard C. Levin, “We are already improving Yale’s campus on a scale not seen since the 1920s, with new facilities and renovations for science, medicine, and the arts and with the acquisition of the 136-acre Yale West Campus. The new residential colleges will add to this growth at a time when our applicant pool is among the nation’s strongest and our programs stand among the very best.”

Currently, more than 20,000 men and women apply each year for the 1,300 places in Yale’s freshman class. The added colleges will permit the University to admit about 200 more students in every class, while maintaining Yale College’s standards of academic and personal excellence. The remaining capacity will be used to ease overcrowding in Yale’s existing facilities.

The University also plans to allocate new teaching resources to ensure that all students continue to receive the same outstanding education current students enjoy. Yale is known for requiring its distinguished researchers to teach undergraduates, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will grow to keep pace with the influx of students. The administration has identified enrollment “pressure points,” including history, economics, and political science as particular areas for faculty recruitment. Additional resources for students, from financial aid to extracurricular programs, are also planned.

As of May 2008, about halfway through its five-year Campaign, Yale has already raised 72% of its original $3 billion goal, with $2.152 billion in gifts and new pledges. This strong performance was central to the University’s decision to raise its goal by the additional $500 million needed to support the construction of two residential colleges. Equally important, the expanded fundraising goal sends a strong signal that Yale remains committed to the full range of priorities announced at the outset of the Campaign.

“When we launched Yale Tomorrow in September 2006, we promised a University-wide effort,” said Inge T. Reichenbach, vice president for Development. “We are confident that we can raise sufficient funds for the new residential colleges and still meet the goals we set for schools, programs, museums, and more, all across the campus. We are tremendously grateful to alumni, parents, and friends who continue to be extraordinarily generous.”

Fundraising for the new residential colleges already has considerable momentum with a nucleus fund for this effort totaling $140 million.