A close relative recently got intrigued about the educational background of US presidents. After talking to him about it, I followed the thread with a few more questions.
The United States has had 45 individuals serve as President so far (and we’ll be electing another in less than two weeks). Here’s their education back story:
· 26 former presidents graduated from a private undergraduate college. Of those, 12 (almost half) went to Ivy League schools (John F Kennedy transferred from Princeton to Harvard, but he’s only counted once).
· 9 former presidents graduated from a public undergraduate college.
· 12 former presidents did not have an undergraduate college degree; some attended college or professional school, but did not graduate.
· 20 former presidents attended graduate school (including medical school, law school or business school), but only 11 (about half) received a graduate degree. 8 of the graduate schools attended (less than one-third) were at Ivy League schools.
Everyone in President Biden’s cabinet graduated from college, with only 3 individuals having attended Ivy League schools.
Moving on to federally elected officials, 99% of current US Senators and 93.8% of US House of Representatives members graduated from college. Over half of the elected officials in both bodies also have a graduate school degree. I was not able to easily find information about which schools these individuals graduated from.
All to say, you don’t need to go to an Ivy League school to be elected to high office in the United States, nor does an Ivy League degree guarantee that you’ll be elected. That said, I didn’t see any Presidents with degrees from an online institution … yet …