Where Did Karoline Leavitt Go to College?
Credit: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images News- Karoline Leavitt serves as the 36th White House press secretary in President Donald Trump’s second administration.
- She graduated from Saint Anselm College in 2019 with a degree in communications and politics.
- In college, Leavitt founded Saint Anselm’s first broadcasting club, studied abroad, and was a staff writer for the student newspaper.
- She previously was the national press secretary for Trump’s 2024 campaign before being appointed as the youngest White House press secretary in history.
During the first Trump administration, Karoline Leavitt interned as a writer in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence. Seven years later, she now serves as the face of President Donald Trump’s second administration as White House press secretary.
Leavitt, 27, graduated in 2015 from Central Catholic High School in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before attending Saint Anselm College, a private Catholic, Benedictine liberal arts college in New Hampshire, to pursue a degree in communications and politics.
Leavitt credits her Catholic education for “forming” the person she is.
“We went to work every single day, and you work hard, and nothing in this life is given, everything needs to be earned,” she said in a 2021 interview with The Catholic Current, as reported by Breitbart.
“I was taught that very young, and those values were really instilled in me and ingrained in me through my Catholic education that I am so grateful for.”
From the Diamond to D.C.
Leavitt attended Saint Anselm College on a softball scholarship, playing for two years before leaving the team to focus on academics.
She also founded Saint Anselm College’s first broadcasting club, studied abroad at John Cabot University, and was a staff writer for the student newspaper, The Saint Anselm Crier.
Some of her articles for the paper include op-eds attacking major news stations for having a liberal bias and defending Trump’s first travel ban, writing that anyone who believed the ban was racist “is acting on pure emotions stemmed from their ongoing hatred for Trump, not facts.”
She also penned a letter to the editor, calling out professors who “infuse their political beliefs into their classroom lectures,” signing it, “A fed-up Republican student.”
As a college student, Leavitt interned with WMUR in Manchester, New Hampshire, and applied for an internship at Fox News before taking an internship in the White House Office of Presidential Correspondence in the summer of 2018. Her time as an intern in the White House led to a full-time job offer in the Presidential Correspondence Office upon graduation in 2019.
Leavitt Credits Her College for Her Career
In 2020, Leavitt was appointed assistant press secretary under then-Secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
After Trump lost the 2020 election, Leavitt moved to Congress, serving as communications director for Republican U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York before launching her own congressional campaign in New Hampshire in 2022.
Leavitt’s campaign boasted her conservative credentials, promising to “serve as a firewall between the radical, power-hungry Democrats in Washington and our freedom-loving state.”
As a congressional candidate, she advocated against critical race theory “and other racist, divisive ideologies from plaguing our classrooms and our culture” and supported abolishing the Department of Education.
Leavitt won the Republican primary but lost the general election to Democrat incumbent Chris Pappas. In 2023, she joined Trump’s super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., as the national spokeswoman before serving as the national press secretary for the Trump campaign beginning in January 2024.
After the 2024 election, Leavitt served as a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team and was soon appointed press secretary for the new administration, making her the youngest-ever White House press secretary.
Leavitt credits Saint Anselm College for her career in politics.
“I owe my career in politics to my alma mater, Saint Anselm College,” she told Politico in 2020.
“As a student during the 2016 election, I was granted the opportunity to work for Fox News and meet several presidential candidates on my campus during the week of the New Hampshire primary. That experience was my first glimpse into the world of press, and I knew I wanted to pursue it in my career post-grad.”