Most U.S. presidents received a college education, even most of the earliest. Of the first seven presidents, five were college graduates. College degrees have set presidents apart from the general population, and presidents have held such a degree even when this was extremely rare and, indeed, unnecessary for practicing most occupations, including law. Of the forty-three men to have been President, twenty-three of them graduated from a private undergraduate college, nine graduated from a public undergraduate college, ten hold no degree, and one (William McKinley) graduated from law school but not undergraduate college. Except for Grover Cleveland and Harry S Truman, every president since 1869 has had a degree.
List by institutions [edit]
Some presidents attended more than one institution. George Washington never attended college, but he did receive his surveyor's certificate from The College of William & Mary. Only three presidents attended foreign colleges at undergraduate level, John F. Kennedy at the London School of Economics and John Quincy Adams at Leiden University, both transferring to Harvard College. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford. Three presidents have attended the United States Service academies: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower attended the United States Military Academy at West Point while Jimmy Carter attended the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis.
Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Calvin Coolidge became lawyers after independent study; they never attended law schools. William McKinley graduated from the Albany Law School, a constituent school of Union University, which also contains Union College, the alma mater of Chester Arthur.
Did not graduate from college [edit]
List by presidents [edit]
Other academic associations [edit]
School president [edit]
Member or chair, school board of trustees [edit]
Faculty member or school officer [edit]
| President(s) |
School |
Position |
Years |
| George Washington |
College of William and Mary |
Chancellor |
1788–1799 |
| George Washington |
Washington College |
Allowed use of his name, Benefactor, Board of Governors |
1782-1799 |
| George Washington |
Washington and Lee University |
Benefactor, no official position[4] |
1796 |
| Thomas Jefferson |
University of Virginia |
Board of Visitors |
1819–1826 |
| James Madison |
University of Virginia |
Board of Visitors |
1819–1836 |
| James Monroe |
University of Virginia |
Board of Visitors |
1826–1831 |
| Millard Fillmore |
University at Buffalo |
Chancellor |
1846–1874 |
| James Buchanan |
Franklin & Marshall College |
President, Board of Trustees |
1853–1865 |
| John Tyler |
College of William and Mary |
Chancellor |
1859–1862 |
| Benjamin Harrison |
Purdue University |
Board of Trustees |
1895–1901 |
| Grover Cleveland |
Princeton University |
Board of Trustees |
1901–1908 |
| Ronald Reagan |
Eureka College |
Board of Trustees |
1947–1953, 1967–1973, 1974-1980. |
| Rutherford B. Hayes |
The Ohio State University |
Board of Trustees |
1881–1893 |
| Franklin D. Roosevelt |
Vassar College |
Board of Trustees |
1923-1945 |
|
| Presidents |
School |
Position & subject |
Years |
| James A. Garfield |
Hiram College |
Professor of Latin, Greek, Mathematics, History, Philosophy, Rhetoric and English literature |
1857-1861[5] |
| William Howard Taft |
University of Cincinnati College of Law |
Dean |
1896-1900[6] |
| William Howard Taft |
Yale Law School |
Kent Professor of Law |
1913-1921 |
| William Howard Taft |
Yale University |
Member of the Yale Corporation |
1901-1913 |
| Woodrow Wilson |
Bryn Mawr College |
Professor of Politics and History |
1885-1888[7] |
| Woodrow Wilson |
Wesleyan University |
Professor of Politics |
1888-1890[7] |
| Woodrow Wilson |
Princeton University |
Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Economy, President |
1902–1910 |
| Dwight D. Eisenhower |
Columbia University |
President |
1948-1952 |
| Richard Nixon |
Whittier College |
Adjunct lecturer, taught undergraduate legal studies class |
|
| Jimmy Carter |
Emory University |
University Distinguished Professor |
1982-Present |
| George H. W. Bush |
Rice University |
Part-Time Professor of Administrative Science |
1978 |
| Bill Clinton |
University of Arkansas |
Professor of Law |
1973–1977 |
| Barack Obama |
University of Chicago Law School |
Senior Lecturer [8] |
1992–2004 |
References [edit]
- ^ http://www.mountvernon.org/visit/plan/index.cfm/pid/808/
- ^ New York Sun, Presidents Roosevelt Honored With Posthumous Columbia Degrees, September 26, 2008
- ^ Columbia Law School, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt to Receive Posthumous Law Degrees from Columbia Law School, September 25, 2008
- ^ http://www.wlu.edu/x52673.xml
- ^ Joseph Nathan Kane, Facts About the Presidents (New York: Simon & Schuster [Pocket Books], 1968 [5th printing]), 194.
- ^ UC.edu
- ^ a b Biography of Wilson on Princeton Web.
- ^ Media Inquiries, University of Chicago Law School
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