Did Trump graduate with honors from the University of Pennsylvania?
Executive summary
Contemporary reporting and archival records show Donald Trump received a Bachelor of Science in economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in May 1968, but available contemporaneous university records and student newspapers do not list him among graduates receiving honors or on the 1968 Dean’s List; multiple fact-checks and university-related reporting conclude he did not graduate “top of his class” or with honors [1][2][3].
1. What the official record says: degree conferred, honors not listed
Donald Trump is recorded as graduating from the University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics [1][4]. Journalistic work that examined Penn’s 1968 commencement materials and the Daily Pennsylvanian (the student newspaper) reports that his name does not appear among students listed as graduating with honors nor on the Dean’s List—both contemporaneous sources used to identify students who finished with recognized academic distinctions [2][3].
2. Repeated claims vs. contemporaneous evidence
For years Trump and some biographical profiles have described his Wharton education in glowing terms, and at times he has been reported as claiming to be at or near the top of his class. But fact-checking outlets and archives found a contradiction: the 1968 commencement program lists students who graduated cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude and Trump is not included; nor is he on the Dean’s List published in 1968 by the Daily Pennsylvanian [2][5]. Reporting concludes the contemporaneous university records do not support the “graduated with honors” or “first in class” claims [6][5].
3. How university and media accounts framed the discrepancy
Local and national outlets have framed this as a mismatch between public claims and archival evidence. Philadelphia magazine’s investigation compiled the commencement program and student-paper listings and concluded the honors and Dean’s List do not include Trump [2]. Poets&Quants, The Daily Pennsylvanian and other outlets published similar findings, calling earlier claims that he was “first in his class” inaccurate in light of the school’s published lists [5][3].
4. What supporters and biographers have said — and what’s missing
Some older biographies and profiles have repeated the assertion that Trump graduated highly ranked; supporters sometimes highlight that he attended and graduated from Wharton as evidence of aptitude [1][7]. However, the contemporaneous sources (commencement program and Dean’s List) examined by multiple outlets do not corroborate honors distinctions. Available sources do not mention contemporaneous university statements directly overturning those archival lists [2][3].
5. Limits of the public record and remaining uncertainties
Trump has not publicly released his academic transcripts, and that absence means some granular details (exact class rank, GPA) cannot be independently verified from primary grade records in the slice of reporting provided here; multiple accounts therefore rely on commencement programs and the student newspaper as the best contemporaneous documentary evidence [6][2]. Available sources do not mention a university-issued correction that retroactively grants him honors or a later discovery that he had been omitted in error [2][3].
6. Bottom line for readers: what you can reliably say
It is accurate to state that Trump graduated from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics [1][4]. It is also accurate, based on the university commencement program and the 1968 Dean’s List as cited in multiple investigations, to say there is no evidence in those contemporaneous records that he graduated with honors or at the top of his class [2][3][5]. Sources disagree about why claims persisted—some point to repeated self-descriptions or earlier biographical repetition—but the archival commencement materials are the strongest publicly reported counter-evidence [2][6].
If you want to pursue this further, the next step would be to request an official transcript or a direct statement from Penn confirming whether any honors were awarded to Trump, though the reporting cited here indicates the publicly available 1968 lists do not show honors designation [2][3].