Astronomy & Astrophysics at Harvard University

If you are interested in studying astronomy and astrophysics, you may want to check out the program at Harvard University. The following information will help you decide if it is a good fit for you.

Harvard is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has a total student population of 30,391. In 2021, 12 astronomy majors received their bachelor's degree from Harvard.

Want to know more about the career opportunities in this field? Check out the Careers in Astronomy & Astrophysics section at the bottom of this page.

Harvard Astronomy & Astrophysics Degrees Available

• Bachelor’s Degree in Astronomy
• Master’s Degree in Astronomy
• Doctorate Degree in Astronomy

Harvard Astronomy & Astrophysics Rankings

The astronomy major at Harvard is not ranked on College Factual’s Best Colleges and Universities for Astronomy & Astrophysics. This could be for a number of reasons, such as not having enough data on the major or school to make an accurate assessment of its quality.

In 2021, 9 students received their master’s degree in astronomy from Harvard. This makes it the #7 most popular school for astronomy master’s degree candidates in the country.

There were 17 students who received their doctoral degrees in astronomy, making the school the #1 most popular school in the United States for this category of students.

Astronomy Student Demographics at Harvard

Take a look at the following statistics related to the make-up of the astronomy majors at Harvard University.

Harvard Astronomy & Astrophysics Bachelor’s Program

In the 2020-2021 academic year, 12 students earned a bachelor's degree in astronomy from Harvard. About 67% of these graduates were women and the other 33% were men. The typical astronomy bachelor's degree program is made up of only 41% women. So female students are more repesented at Harvard since its program graduates 26% more women than average.

Prospective students may be interested in knowing that this school graduates 6% more racial-ethnic minorities in its astronomy bachelor's program than the national average.*

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's in astronomy.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	1
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	1
White	5
International Students	2
Other Races/Ethnicities	3

Harvard Astronomy & Astrophysics Master’s Program

Of the 9 students who graduated with a master’s in astronomy from Harvard in 2021, 89% were men and 11% were women.

Of the students who received a astronomy master's degree from Harvard, 56% were white. This is typical for this degree on the natiowide level.

The following table and chart show the race/ethnicity for students who recently graduated from Harvard University with a master's in astronomy.

Race/Ethnicity	Number of Students
Asian	1
Black or African American	0
Hispanic or Latino	1
White	5
International Students	2
Other Races/Ethnicities	0

Harvard also has a doctoral program available in astronomy. In 2021, 17 students graduated with a doctor's degree in this field.

Related Majors

• Chemistry
• Physics

Careers That Astronomy Grads May Go Into

A degree in astronomy can lead to the following careers. Since job numbers and average salaries can vary by geographic location, we have only included the numbers for MA, the home state for Harvard University.

Occupation	Jobs in MA	Average Salary in MA
Natural Sciences Managers	4,040	$183,490
Physics Postsecondary Professors	550	$116,470
Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Professors	420	$137,740
Physicists	360	$150,170

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• Image Credit: By Elisa.rolle under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.