With a two-person faculty and 79 students, Hillsboro promised "a course of study designed to be thorough and practical, and to embrace all the branches of learning, usually pursued in the best academies and colleges".

After years of financial challenges, shifts in Lutheran synodical support, and searches for a suitable location, Carthage's board of trustees voted unanimously in 1957 to open a campus in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

[18] The library also won the Highsmith Award in 2007 for Family Fun Night, a program for community members that encourages learning for children from 2 to 13.

The Oaks, a new student residence village overlooking Lake Michigan, opened in 2012, containing six villas with semi-private suites and a media lounge on each floor.

[20] The latest $45 million expansion added a new planetarium, twelve new science labs, new classrooms, faculty offices, and student gathering and exhibition spaces.

The new building also presented students with the Terrace, a new studying space with televisions, laptop bars, and a functioning fireplace.

[23] Carthage also partners with master's level institutions to offer dual-degree programs in engineering, occupational therapy, chiropractic, and pharmacy.

Its most popular undergraduate majors, by number out of 585 graduates in 2022, were:[24] The academic calendar spans two 14-week semesters, separated by a month-long January term.

[25] Carthage also offers three master's degree programs in education, business design and innovation, and music theatre vocal pedagogy.

[28] The college made this decision in an effort to make its pricing more transparent and to attract students that may have been deterred by the high listed tuition.

The reading list included works by Plato, Homer, Shakespeare, Thomas Jefferson, and W. E. B. DuBois, in addition to the Bible.

[31] In the 2020–2021 school year, this was replaced with Intellectual Foundations, which has the same purpose but includes more texts written by non-white authors.

In addition to on-campus courses, many students travel with faculty on study tours in either January or the summer months.

It is to be effected via a "reorganization" affecting ten departments, including Biology, Classics, English, Modern Languages, Music, Philosophy and Great Ideas, Physics and Astronomy, Political Science, Religion, and Sociology and Criminal Justice.

Participating students spend a semester in Chicago, securing an internship or pursuing a major academic project while living and taking classes in the city.

Dennis Swaney and other members of the Class of 1913 found the 2 ½-ton chunk of granite in a farmer's field and moved the stone to the campus.

[47] One tradition recounts that any woman sitting on the rock was obligated to kiss the man who found her there and countless marriage proposals have been made and accepted near it.

[50] Every year at the start of December, Carthage hosts a musical celebration of the birth of Christ for the community.

Carthage competes in 28 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, golf, lacrosse, soccer, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field, volleyball and wrestling; while women's sports include basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, lacrosse, soccer, softball, swimming & diving, tennis, track & field, volleyball, water polo and wrestling.

Over a third of Carthage students are involved in varsity intercollegiate athletics, and another third participate in the many intramural and club sports offered.

The men's volleyball team went undefeated in the 2021 spring season and went on to win the school's first Division III National Championship.

Since 1990, Carthage has claimed eight outright CCIW divisional titles, one divisional-title tie, nine conference crowns, 16 NCAA regional berths, including nine-straight from 1992 to 2000, six regional titles, third-place finishes in both the 1993 and 1994 NCAA Division III baseball championships and fourth place in both 1995 and 1997.

[56] In 2005, the NCAA ruled that Carthage, along with several other colleges, would be ineligible to host NCAA-sanctioned playoffs and tournaments because their nickname, "Redmen", was perceived as an offensive reference to Native Americans.

[57] In conjunction with the rearticulation of the name, a new logo for the team replaced the traditional feathered Carthage C. It includes a torch, a shield, and a C. In 2020, the Carthage Board of Trustees and Athletics voted unanimously to retire the Red Men/Lady Reds nickname and mascot "Torchie" from athletics.