What courses did Trump take at Fordham and how did they shape his early business views?
Executive summary
Available reporting shows Donald Trump attended Fordham University from 1964–1966 studying economics before transferring to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania; however, his actual Fordham course list and grades have not been publicly released and a purported Fordham report card circulating online was called a forgery by the university [1] [2] [3]. Contemporary Fordham coverage and later profiles emphasize that Trump studied economics at Fordham for two years, that he was a commuter student and sometimes skipped classes, and that Fordham was more of a waypoint than the defining education for his business outlook [4] [5] [1].
1. Fordham was Trump’s academic starting point — economics, not a luxury-business curriculum
Multiple accounts say Trump spent his first two college years at Fordham College at Rose Hill studying economics before transferring to Wharton; Fordham appears in biographies and university sources as his first college campus experience [1] [5]. Those sources frame Fordham as where he began formal study of economics, but they do not provide an itemized list of courses he took while there [1] [5].
2. No public transcript — Fordham and privacy mean gaps in the record
Fordham and other reporting note that Trump’s grades and test scores have never been publicly released and that university officials have refused to hand over records beyond legal limits; a 2019 account said Fordham confirmed requests from Trump’s team to avoid disclosure [2]. Separately, Reuters flagged a widely shared image purporting to be a Fordham report card as a forgery and quoted a Fordham spokesperson calling it inauthentic, underlining that available documents online are unreliable without university confirmation [3].
3. What contemporaries remember — commuter life, athletics and skipping class
Fordham student recollections published in campus outlets and local reporting describe Trump as a commuter student who sometimes skipped class to play sports like golf and squash, and as someone who did not always take notes in lecture settings; those recollections suggest his Fordham tenure was social and extracurricular as well as academic [4] [1]. Such anecdotes imply his early business thinking was formed partly outside formal coursework, though those are impressions, not curricular evidence [4] [1].
4. Fordham as a waypoint — Wharton is where he completed his business degree
Profiles consistently emphasize that Trump transferred to Wharton to finish his degree in economics, and that he often highlights Wharton rather than Fordham in his biographies and public statements; this supports the view that Fordham’s role in shaping his business views was limited compared with Wharton and family experience in real estate [1] [5]. Available sources portray Fordham as an initial choice made for proximity and convenience, not necessarily for its business pedigree [1] [5].
5. How Fordham-era experiences may have influenced him — interpretation, not documented coursework
Because there is no public course list or grades from Fordham, any claim that specific Fordham classes shaped Trump’s early business philosophy is speculative in current reporting; profiles instead point to extracurricular influences (family construction work, sports, commuting life) and the decision to move to Wharton as more consequential [4] [1]. Where reporters do infer influence, they rely on anecdotes and broader biographical patterns rather than documented syllabi [5] [4].
6. Competing viewpoints and limits of the record
Some outlets and alumni memories paint Fordham as a formative, character-shaping environment for a young Trump (emphasizing social and athletic habits), while Trump’s own public narrative prioritizes Wharton and family business apprenticeship; the factual dispute here is not about attendance but about the weight Fordham should be given in explaining his business formation — a question current sources leave open [5] [4] [1]. Importantly, the absence of verified Fordham transcripts and Reuters’ identification of at least one fake report card means documentary claims require caution [2] [3].
7. Bottom line for researchers and readers
If you seek the exact courses Trump took at Fordham, available sources do not publish a semester-by-semester course list or grades and caution against counterfeit documents [3] [2]. For understanding how his early business views developed, current reporting points toward a mix of brief Fordham study in economics, family real-estate work, extracurricular life, and his transfer to Wharton — with Wharton and apprenticeship commonly presented as the stronger influences in the documented record [1] [5] [4].