Our Commitment to Diversity

As a team made up of individuals from a variety of backgrounds, we are dedicated to engaging with and recruiting individuals with multifaceted perspectives and experiences to aid in the cultivation of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive community who are striving to create a sustainable future for all people and the planet.

Currently about 24% of master’s students from the U.S. self-identify as domestic students of color. Over the past five years, international student enrollment has averaged 25%. We are committed to sustaining a compassionate environment that actively recruits and enrolls diverse learners and to promoting careful consideration, reflection, and respectful discourse that leads to an elevated understanding of and appreciation for different facets of diversity — geographic, gender, sexual orientation, racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, academic, disability, and others.

Dimensions of Diversity  

• Our pioneering curriculum addresses environmental challenges and environmental justice issues at multiple scales — from local to global, urban to rural, and managed to wild — to equip our students to become 21st century leaders.
• The 2021 incoming master’s cohort was comprised of students from 29 U.S. states and territories and 21 countries around the world.
• YSE’s financial aid policies and program are designed to make it possible for students to pursue an environmental education regardless of their financial circumstances. Yale was the first American university to combine a need-blind admissions policy with a need-based scholarship award system.
• Yale is proud of its strong commitment to equal opportunity and accessibility to all candidates from any part of the world who show great academic and personal promise. We extend our need-blind admissions policy and holistic application review to all students without regard to citizenship or immigration status.
• Yale’s cultural organizations and resource centers encourage all students to engage, explore, and expand their cultural understanding — forging bonds and creating community with people from all different backgrounds. Our community actively engages in difficult but important conversations about race and identity, including diversity, culture, and cross-cultural awareness in our monthly Community Conversations. YSE also strives to cultivate community, inclusion, and belonging through student interest groups and communal events such as TGIF and cultural celebrations.