Originally established to provide qualified teachers to Catholic schools, it gradually expanded and now offers foundation, undergraduate, and postgraduate degrees in a range of humanities and social sciences.

[6] Both colleges appointed separate principals: Augusta Maria, a Manchester University physics graduate and former deputy head of a Grammar School, was put in charge of Trinity College, while Andrew Kean, a Deputy Director of the Leeds University Institute of Education, became the first principal of All Saints.

Consequently, course content was modified and efforts made to increase student numbers without diluting the college's Catholic identity.

[8] On top of this, the government of John Major had continued a policy of spending reductions on smaller university colleges.

[8] Nonetheless, academic provision was able to expand, particularly in Communications and Media, and by 1998 the college numbered nearly 2,000 undergraduates and 250 postgraduates.

In 2011 students at the new university college held the longest running sit-in in the country as a protest against the national increase in tuition fees.

In 2009–10 the campus underwent major developments and refurbishment, most notable being the new student accommodation block All Saints Court, with 198 bedrooms.

These include All Saints Court, which is a £6m development of 198 bedrooms with ensuite and self-catered facilities that was opened in September 2010.

Its indoor facilities include a sports hall, a fully fitted fitness suite with free weights area, two treatment rooms, a movement and spin studio, a gymnasium (incorporating dance studio facilities) and two squash courts.

[25] A professional work placement is offered with every degree, through links Leeds Trinity maintains with local business, industry and schools.

Foundation year programs are available for prospective students who may not already hold the required qualifications for university study.

[30] It is notable that Leeds Trinity is mainly a teaching institution and because of this has a low research output – contributing to a lower position in the major tables.

Leeds Trinity is the current holder of the BBC North Education Partnership Achievement award, given in recognition of its 'inspirational' journalism teaching, and Leeds Trinity news trainees have won the Partnership's Journalism award in two years out of the preceding three.

At the core of the Centre for Journalism's provision are extended periods of live and as-live newsroom operation, giving students a real understanding of working to deadline.

Leeds Trinity also works closely with the commercial sector; the news editors of Radio Aire,[39] Hallam FM, Capital FM (Yorkshire) and The Pulse all trained at Leeds Trinity, as did correspondents and reporters with ITN, Sky and ITV Yorkshire.