What do University of Pennsylvania official records say about Donald Trump's degree and major?

1. What official Penn records explicitly state

The most direct public evidence cited in campus and local reporting are the 212th Commencement pages and Penn’s alumni listings showing Trump as a 1968 Wharton graduate with a bachelor’s degree in economics ^{[1] [2]}. Those commencement materials list graduates and note that Trump is not among students awarded honors; contemporaneous Dean’s List publications from 1968 likewise do not include his name, which supports the conclusion that he did not graduate with academic distinction as listed publicly ^{[4] [1]}.

2. What Penn refuses to disclose and why

University officials have repeatedly said that FERPA and institutional practice prevent them from releasing an alumnus’s detailed grades or full transcripts without the alumnus’s permission; Penn has applied that rule to Trump, declining to provide his academic record when requested ^{[3] [5]}. As a result, official Penn sources will not confirm grade-point average, class rank, Dean’s List exceptions beyond published lists, or standardized-test scores ^{[3] [5]}.

3. How campus reporting fills — and doesn’t fill — the gaps

Student-run outlets such as The Daily Pennsylvanian and Under the Button have published what they found: commencement pages listing Trump as a Wharton graduate without honors, the 1968 Dean’s List that omits him, and a purported snippet of a junior-year transcript published by a student paper ^{[1] [6]}. Those student-sourced items provide context but are not the same as Penn’s certified transcripts, and the university’s public stance is that it will not validate or release private academic records without consent ^{[1] [3]}.

4. How biographical and mainstream sources summarize Penn’s record

Major biographical summaries, including broad encyclopedic entries, consistently state that Trump transferred from Fordham to Wharton and “graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics” ^{[2] [7]}. Profiles and retrospectives often repeat that formulation but differ when discussing honors or academic standing; the campus documents cited above are the primary basis for saying he did not graduate with honors ^{[1] [4]}.

5. Conflicting claims and unresolved questions

Some historical news stories and later biographical claims have at times described Trump as a top student or “first in his class,” but those assertions are contradicted by Wharton commencement honor lists and the 1968 Dean’s List omission cited by Penn-affiliated reporting ^{[4] [1]}. Other questions—such as his GPA, exact class rank, SAT scores, or any private exchanges about records—are not publicly documented by the sources provided and therefore remain unverified ^{[3] [5]}.

6. Motives, incentives and how reporting frames them

Penn’s insistence on protecting student records is standard legal practice under federal privacy rules; multiple outlets note the university’s refusal to release grades without Trump’s consent, and some reporters comment on the political optics of that choice given Trump’s past public challenges to others’ records ^{[3] [5]}. Student outlets and critics emphasize the omission from honors lists to counter Trump’s self-characterizations of academic brilliance, while biographical summaries focus on degree completion — illustrating competing narratives shaped by selective use of the same documents ^{[4] [2]}.

7. Bottom line for readers seeking verification

Available, citable Penn material and campus reporting show Donald J. Trump graduated from the Wharton School in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics and that he was not listed among graduates with honors or on the 1968 Dean’s List ^{[1] [4] [2]}. Detailed academic records such as transcripts, GPAs, or class rank are not publicly released by the university without the alumnus’s authorization, and the sources provided confirm Penn has declined to make those disclosures ^{[3] [5]}.