Trinity Collins

People at a Coffee ShopFour years of free tuition to attend an elite, top-ranked institution doesn’t come without a certain price.

At the university where Trinity (they, them) graduated, an incoming freshman is four times more likely to be from the top one percent than from the bottom twenty.

The challenge for students like Trinity is to find community and keep pace with others who can elect not to work and are able to focus solely on their course load, who enjoy coaches and connections and can consider unpaid internships that open doors.

They, Trinity Collins, are more than grateful for the package that included free tuition. But as an undergrad, while maintaining a 3.8 GPA, they worked full time to pay for housing, fees, textbooks and living expenses. All of this while being the primary caregiver for a family member.

In hindsight the migraines, chronic pain and a missed semester were all but inevitable. And in retrospect those remote classes during the pandemic were a godsend for the overextended undergrad. Trinity became close to the members of an online “pod,” coming to share an identical tattoo with one of them.

Trinity notes the disconnect that a university business model which enjoys an endowment of $14 billion, and was so generous to them individually, exploits the labor of students, athletes, TAs and adjuncts alike.

They, Trinity, may continue their pursuit of history through a joint Masters and PhD Program. Understanding the past, they believe, is key to dealing with developments that today’s powers-that-be didn’t see coming, or chose to ignore.

At this particular moment, after graduating, Trinity looks forward to building a bit of savings and to enjoying the freedom and the luxury to simply “do things.”