More low-income students than ever before will enter Harvard Yard as freshmen next fall, in what administrators are hailing as a promising sign for the College’s recent financial aid reforms.

Students from families earning annual incomes under $60,000 will comprise nearly 18 percent of the Class of 2009, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67. In previous years, the figure has hovered around 15 percent.

The increase comes after a year of heavy recruiting by Byerly Hall to attract low-income students to the College. The Class of 2009 is the second class to benefit from the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI), which cuts costs for low-income families.

“It’s just a resounding success,” Fitzsimmons said.

Under the new program, parental contributions are waived for families earning under $40,000 a year, and families with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000 have their contributions reduced.

Despite this year’s advances, Harvard’s undergraduate student body remains wealthy. Over 80 percent of the College hails from the top half of the national income distribution, and the average household income of students receiving financial aid is in the high $80,000 range, according to Fitzsimmons.

The yield for HFAI-qualifying students was down slightly from last year, a decrease Fitzsimmons attributed to increased competition from other universities following Byerly’s lead and expanding financial packages for low-income students.

“It’s clear that this is very high up on everyone’s radar scope, so we had a lot more competition out there this year,” Fitzsimmons said, adding that he attended a conference in June where college admissions officers had expressed interest in following Harvard’s new program.

In March, Yale President Richard C. Levin announced a program that, like Harvard’s, would waive parental contributions from future Elis from families earning less than $45,000 in annual income.

As of yesterday, 290 HFAI-qualifying students had accepted offers of admission, for a yield of 79 percent in this group, down about four percent from last year.

“I can presume we can see a somewhat steady increase [in low-income students] over the short run, three or five years,” Fitzsimmons said. “Then with all these people fighting over this group...we can really plateau.”

Fitzsimmons insists that the competition is “a good thing,” since it means more colleges are finding ways to accept low-income students.

“We’re delighted to be one of the, we hope, principal stimuli. What it means for us individually is a little less clear,” he said.

“We’d have preferred to have an eighty percent plus yield,” he added in reference to the HFAI admits. “Still, this is tremendous.”

NUMBERS GAME

Controversy over University President Lawrence H. Summers’ January remarks on women and science did not appear to significantly affect students’ choices in this year’s admissions.

Female admits checked ‘yes’ on Harvard’s reply card more often than males; 79.3 percent of accepted women will arrive in Cambridge in the fall, compared to 77.8 percent of men. Fitzsimmons said the yield of female students expressing interest in the sciences was up slightly from last year.

“We actually weren’t surprised,” Fitzsimmons said, adding that there were few concerns about the issue at information sessions and last month’s prefrosh weekend.

Overall, the number of students accepting Harvard’s offer of admission rose slightly this year, inching up a percentage point to 78.5 percent. Byerly accepted an all-time low 9.1 percent from a record applicant pool of 22,796. Ethnic and geographic demographics remained consistent with previous years. The Class of 2009 will include slightly more African-American and Native American students and slightly fewer Asian-Americans and Latinos.

The final figures may change in coming weeks depending on waitlist decisions and deferrals. Fitzsimmons said Harvard expects to admit 15 to 20 students off its waitlist this year, nudging the overall yield toward eighty percent.

Harvard routinely enjoys the highest yield of any comparable university. In 2004, Yale netted 69 percent of its admits, 68 percent of admitted Princetonians flocked to New Jersey, and Stanford scored 66 percent of its accepted students.

Inquiries to Yale and Princeton’s admissions offices about this year’s yields were not returned yesterday. A Stanford spokesman said the school does not release yield numbers until the fall.

—Staff writer Michael M. Grynbaum can be reached at grynbaum@fas.harvard.edu.