Thong Minh Trinh

Bio

Thong Minh Trinh is an Exchange Scholar at Stanford University and a Berkeley Fellow and PhD student in Education at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a quantitative higher education policy scholar whose research centers on higher education finance, particularly student loans and financial aid. Using quasi-experimental designs and other quantitative methods, he examines how financing policies shape student borrowing, college choices, educational opportunity, and student outcomes in the United States and internationally.

Thong’s scholarship spans higher education systems in the United States, Vietnam, and South Korea. His peer-reviewed research has appeared in Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, the British Educational Research Journal, and Asian Education and Development Studies, covering transitions to higher education, institutional financial sustainability, student finance, and educational opportunity. He also contributes to public and policy conversations on college affordability, student loans, income-share agreements, and the trade-offs among tuition, quality, and access.

At UC Berkeley, Thong has taught in the Departments of Statistics and Political Science, teaching applied quantitative analysis and advanced programming in R. His research experience includes evaluating an NSF-funded graduate training initiative at the Berkeley School of Public Health, contributing to research on student debt and admissions policy at the Berkeley School of Education, and supporting higher education policy analysis through a legislative fellowship with the Office of Illinois State Senator Chapin Rose.

Prior to Berkeley, Thong earned an EdM in Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he was an Edwin J. O’Leary Fellow and received the Illinois International Graduate Achievement Award. He also holds an MSc in Business Analysis and Consulting from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, where he received the Strathclyde Business School Dean’s Excellence Scholarship, and a BSc in International Business from the Banking Academy of Vietnam, graduating with distinction.

Thong is active in the higher education research community as an editorial board member for the Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education, the Journal of Student Financial Aid, and the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice. He also regularly reviews for leading journals and conferences, including AERA, ASHE, AEFP, and CIES. His academic work has earned honors and fellowships, including the Berkeley Fellowship, Illinois International Graduate Achievement Award, and the ICPSR Education Research Scholarship.

More information is available at https://thongminhtrinh.com