About

The Complete College Photo Library provides a new view of higher education to shift how people see and understand the college experience.

The catalog of photos shows actual learning and student experiences in higher education. They represent the experiences of students, faculty, and staff on a variety of campuses from across the nation, illustrating real situations in authentic environments.

Complete College America (CCA) developed the image collection to address the limited number of open-source and affordable stock images, many of which are already overused, posed, and do not adequately illustrate real students in real situations, both inside and outside the classroom.

The higher education community has sought images that represent the experiences of students from historically excluded backgrounds, those attending community colleges, veterans earning a degree, working students on commuter campuses, first-generation students, those returning to school as adults, students at rural colleges, and Minority-Serving Institutions, including ANAPISISs, HBCUs, HSIs, TCUs, and more.

The Process

The Complete College Photo Library seeks to provide a source for authentic images of the college experience across the United States, centering experiences and identities typically excluded from other higher education image sources.

In service of this goal, participants were given the option to self-identify race, ethnicity, gender, and non-visible identities, such as veteran status, disabilities, or first-generation student. As you explore tags related to these characteristics, we honored participants in the tagging process who self-identified and those who chose not to self-identify. Additionally, when identity-based tags are included with a photo, they may refer to some but not all participants in the photo.

Complete College America was also intentional about selecting sites in a variety of geographic regions and institution types that directly seek to serve historically excluded student populations. Every image within the Complete College Photo Library features real students, faculty, and staff from an institution selected to recognize the diversity of experiences in American higher education.

Support and Funding

Complete College America is grateful to the following funders for their generous support of the Photo Library:

The following colleges and universities provided time and resources to capture their campuses and communities:

CCA partnered with renowned photojournalist Allison Shelley to capture all the images in the library. Visceral provided web development for the project.

About Complete College America

Complete College America (CCA) builds movements for scaled change and transforms institutions.

Since its founding in 2009, CCA has paired bold, innovative thinking with practical actions that colleges and policymakers can implement across every level of higher education.

CCA’s work centers on researching and testing education reforms, providing coaching and support, and advocating for change. Across these areas, CCA uses data to identify barriers and design successful strategies; aligns policy, perspective, and practice so complex systems operate effectively; connects experts to amplify their insights; and builds shared accountability.

The organization is at the center of the broad CCA Alliance, which is driving change that works for every leader, every campus, and every system.