Trinity’s High-Earning Alumni Reflected in Updated Carnegie Classifications

Trinity College’s 2025 Carnegie Classifications reflect the College’s commitment to arts and sciences, as well as the high salary earnings of Trinity alumni.

The Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education recently released the fully redesigned Carnegie Classification on Institutions of Higher Education, the leading framework for recognizing and describing higher education institutions in the United States. In 1970, the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education began developing a classification of colleges and universities to support its program of research and policy analysis. The framework was first published in 1973 and is updated every three years to reflect changes among colleges and universities.

Trinity’s 2025 Institutional Classification is “Special Focus: Arts and Sciences.” Its 2025 Student Access and Earnings Classification is “Lower Access, Higher Earnings.”

The Institutional Classification reflects institutional type, largely based on the degrees an institution awards, the subjects in which it awards degrees, and the size of the institution, according to Carnegie. Trinity’s Institutional Classification, “Special Focus: Arts and Sciences,” includes 221 institutions. This represents 6 percent of U.S. colleges and universities in the Institutional Classification.

The 2025 Student Access and Earnings Classification is a new classification that examines the extent to which an institution is enrolling students who reflect the communities it serves and whether its students go on to earn competitive wages compared with peers in their area. This classification aims to spur collaboration and institutional improvement with a focus on how higher education can foster opportunities for student success, according to Carnegie.

The classification considers two measures. The first is access, asking, “Are institutions providing access to a student population that reflects the locations they serve?” This measure looks at two data points: undergraduate students who receive Pell Grants and undergraduate students from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups. Both data points are compared with the demographics for the areas that institutions serve.

The other measure is earnings, asking, “After students leave an institution, how much are they making compared to peers in their job market?” This measure evaluates former Title IV undergraduate students’ earnings eight years after they entered the institution and compares the median value with the earnings of a similar population in the locations that students are from.

Trinity’s Student Access and Earnings Classification, “Lower Access, Higher Earnings,” includes 315 institutions. This represents 10 percent of U.S. colleges and universities in the Student Access and Earnings Classification.

These two classifications follow February’s release of Carnegie’s Research Activity Designations, when Trinity was named as one of the country’s “Research Colleges and Universities” because of its significant research and development activities, which exceed $2.5 million in annual expenditures.

“The research designation is especially important because it recognizes that, as one of the country’s selective liberal arts institutions, we invest in both teaching and research,” said Sonia Cardenas, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty. “When students come to Trinity, they can expect to be mentored by leading teacher-scholars, with opportunities to do impactful research alongside faculty mentors.”

The Carnegie Classifications are updated every three years, with the last release finalized in February 2022. The next release of the Carnegie Classifications is planned for spring 2028.

To see all institutions included in these classifications, as well as an interactive Student Access and Earnings Classification visualization, click here.