What is your ROI for Trinity?

Talia Cutler

Editor in Chief

In July 2025, a “do no harm” standard for higher education was introduced in Congress, having major effects on federal funding to colleges across the country. The provision states that college programs whose graduates make less than high school graduates several years after graduating will lose federal funding. This provision is a part of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, aiming to increase accountability among all institutions of higher education (public and private) and prevent students from taking on debt for degrees that do not lead to sufficient financial returns, ensuring a positive return on investment (ROI). 

There are some concerns with the targets of this initiative, specifically, that it pointedly threatens to wipe out programs like fine arts, theatre and religious studies — fields that may take more than several years to become established and whose ROI may not be evident right away. So, what is “worth” in higher education? What is your ROI for Trinity? 

The catch with this funding provision is that fewer than 1 percent of college programs in the country fail the litmus test. Although Connecticut ranks among the states with the highest failure rate, only 2.1 percent of students in the state are in failing programs, not counting undergraduate certificate programs. All Trinity College majors, including dance and theatre, studio arts, etc, pass the standard based on available data.  So why pretend like our degrees are limited due to the liberal arts nature of our education? 

A hallmark of the liberal arts education, other than the snarky comments from extended family members on Thanksgiving, is its belief that return on investment is not always financial. We are, as is hammered into us throughout orientation and in those panhandling Giving Day infographics, ”bold, independent thinkers who lead transformative lives,” undefined by tax brackets. Instead, we are better measured by intellectual and extracurricular pursuits. 

Thus, we are commonly conditioned to look for value in unconventional places — do we feel inspired? Challenged? As we walk the graduation platform, are we transformed people from when we first arrived? It is easy, especially in the humanities, to feel caught up in a perceived hierarchy of majors, where econ majors dominate the scene with bared teeth and Goldman internships. 

Yet, the value was always here. If our degrees can pass a foundational (albeit arbitrary) benchmark for ROI, then ROI anxiety is no longer about institutional failure or major choice. Instead, it becomes a question of how students define and pursue value within an environment that already offers access, funding and support.

With the cost of higher education steadily rising, there emerges a (sickening) national debate on whether college is “worth it.” The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, USA Today, NBC and a myriad of other news outlets publicly quibble with the question, weighing loans versus median salaries. The fact that the debate exists at all is discouraging — it is unquestionably a factor in the decreasing amount of teenagers who choose to pursue higher education, and, as a result, the amount of young adults who spell “you’re” without an e. This is precisely why it is important for colleges to have accountability for the value of their degrees. College should not be a controversial choice — students should be able to understand the concept of value beyond starting salary. 

I can say with much confidence that Trinity provides a lot for me: internships, work experience, lifelong friendships, relationships with inspiring and accomplished professors, free frisbees and frat flu every fall without fail. “Camp Trin” may be a fitting epithet for our campus, but its campiness should not undercut its merit. Our study abroad programs, J-term programs and the career center are chronically underemphasized. You could get an experiential internship in Europe, read Greek manuscripts at the Bodleian or work alongside legislative bodies. You can do incredibly impressive things while being fully supported by Trinity. Yet, all too often I see people coasting through their years at Trinity acknowledging the general idea of these opportunities, but never taking advantage of them to the fullest extent. These students ​​graduate with the same credentials as their more active peers, and yet still leave with something meaningfully smaller. This phenomenon poses an essential question: When you graduate, will the limits of your degree reflect the limits of our institution, or the limits of how much of it you chose to use?

The hackneyed truth is that educational ROI is not singular. Students should take responsibility for extracting value from their education, resisting the misconception that this is a value that is exclusively charted on their paycheck. The value of a Trinity education is not hypothetical or hidden — it is offered freely and constantly. As a Trinity student, an economic ROI may be guaranteed but an experiential ROI is not. Whether you walk the platform in four months or four years, you should be conscious of the idea of worth — not what Trinity itself is worth, but whether you have chosen to make Trinity worth it.