Which is the richest Cambridge college? By any measure it is Trinity, and there isn’t a close second. But beyond that headline the picture is more interesting, with some of the smallest colleges holding far more wealth per student than famous names like King’s.
This list ranks all 31 Cambridge colleges by their net assets, taken from each college’s own published annual accounts (year ended June 2023, except Clare, which reports to June 2024). We also show each college’s endowment and its wealth per student, which tells a rather different story.
If you prefer your college lists sorted another way, we also have the colleges listed by founding date and alphabetically.
The full ranking
| Rank | College | Endowment | Net assets | Wealth per student |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trinity | £2,020m | £2,192m | £2,151k |
| 2 | St John’s | £674m | £974m | £1,019k |
| 3 | King’s | £340m | £481m | £633k |
| 4 | Trinity Hall | £89m | £431m | £761k |
| 5 | Gonville & Caius | £271m | £403m | £481k |
| 6 | Emmanuel | £143m | £388m | £529k |
| 7 | Jesus | £236m | £375m | £409k |
| 8 | Peterhouse | £238.6m | £350m | £694k |
| 9 | Clare | £187.5m | £336m | £442k |
| 10 | Pembroke | £139m | £302m | £408k |
| 11 | Newnham | £74m | £259m | £362k |
| 12 | Christ’s | £122m | £244m | £336k |
| 13 | Corpus Christi | £100m | £239m | £482k |
| 14 | Downing | £44m | £224m | £247k |
| 15 | Homerton | £119m | £215m | £162k |
| 16 | Magdalene | £74m | £202m | £350k |
| 17 | Churchill | £37m | £196m | £238k |
| 18 | St Catharine’s | £74m | £175m | £211k |
| 19 | Girton | £73m | £173m | £191k |
| 20 | Fitzwilliam | £77m | £155m | £160k |
| 21 | Queens’ | £120m | £154m | £144k |
| 22 | Sidney Sussex | £31m | £140m | £228k |
| 23 | Selwyn | £55m | £134m | £194k |
| 24 | Murray Edwards | £54m | £118m | £193k |
| 25 | Robinson | £30m | £117m | £171k |
| 26 | Darwin | £25m | £82m | £109k |
| 27 | Wolfson | £32m | £81m | £75k |
| 28 | Hughes Hall | £8m | £57m | £61k |
| 29 | Lucy Cavendish | £14m | £50m | £46k |
| 30 | St Edmund’s | £19m | £44m | £54k |
| 31 | Clare Hall | £21m | £42m | £145k |
Figures from each college’s published Annual Report and Accounts, year ended 30 June 2023 (Clare: 30 June 2024), rounded. Wealth per student is net assets divided by total student numbers.
Why is Trinity so much richer than everyone else?
Trinity’s wealth is roughly what the next four colleges hold combined, and more than the seventeen least wealthy colleges put together. The short answer is Henry VIII. When he founded Trinity in 1546 by merging King’s Hall and Michaelhouse, he endowed it with land confiscated from the monasteries, and the college has managed that estate shrewdly for nearly five centuries. Its modern portfolio includes major commercial property such as a large stake in the Port of Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest container port, and the land under the O2 Arena in London.
Endowment vs net assets: what’s the difference?
The two figures measure different things, which is why rankings you see elsewhere sometimes disagree.
A college’s endowment is its invested fund, the pot of money and investments held to generate income permanently. Net assets is the broader balance-sheet figure: everything the college owns, including its historic buildings and operational property, minus what it owes. A college like Trinity Hall has a modest endowment (£89m) but very substantial net assets (£431m) because of the property it owns. We rank by net assets because it is the fullest measure of what a college is actually worth.
The richest colleges per student
Total wealth favours big colleges, so it is worth looking at wealth per student, which is a better guide to how comfortable a college actually is. On that measure the top five are:
- Trinity at £2.15m per student, in a league of its own
- St John’s at just over £1m per student
- Trinity Hall at £761k, despite ranking only fourth by total wealth
- Peterhouse at £694k, the oldest college and one of the smallest, yet eighth wealthiest overall
- King’s at £633k
At the other end, the mature and postgraduate colleges (Hughes Hall, St Edmund’s, Lucy Cavendish, Wolfson) hold under £80k per student. Wealth at Cambridge correlates strongly with age: the colleges founded before 1600 have had centuries of compounding land values and benefactions that the twentieth-century foundations simply cannot match.
Does college wealth matter to students?
More than you might expect. Wealthier colleges tend to subsidise accommodation and food more heavily, offer more generous travel grants, book grants and hardship funds, and maintain better facilities. It is one of the quieter factors worth weighing up when choosing a college, alongside location, size and age, though every college guarantees the same teaching through the University itself.
Sources and how this list is compiled
Every Cambridge college is an independent charity and publishes an Annual Report and Accounts each year. The figures above come from those accounts for the year ended 30 June 2023 (Clare: 30 June 2024). We update this page as new accounts are published. Because colleges report at slightly different times and investment values move, treat small gaps between neighbouring colleges as indicative rather than precise.