Education Level
- The table below shows the highest education level attained by each president.
- Ten president earned advanced degrees.
- Two presidents - Lincoln and A. Johnson - had no formal education at all.
- Franklin Pierce was the first president to earn an advanced degree.
- Harry S. Truman was the last person to become president without earning a college degree. He withdrew from both Spalding's Commercial College and the University of Kansas City Law School.
- Woodrow Wilson was the only president to earn a Ph.D. (Political Science).
- George W. Bush was the only president with an MBA.
- More presidents have attended Harvard than any other school - 5 undergraduate and 3 graduate.
| # | President | # of Presidents | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Graduate Degree | 10 | ||
| 14 | Franklin Pierce | ||
| 19 | Rutherford B. Hayes | ||
| 27 | William H. Taft | ||
| 28 | Woodrow Wilson | ||
| 37 | Richard M. Nixon | ||
| 38 | Gerald R. Ford | ||
| 42 | Bill Clinton | ||
| 43 | George W. Bush | ||
| 44 | Barack Obama | ||
| 46 | Joe Biden | ||
| Attended Graduate School | 9 | ||
| 9 | William Henry Harrison | ||
| 21 | Chester A. Arthur | ||
| 25 | William McKinley | ||
| 26 | Theodore Roosevelt | ||
| 32 | Franklin D. Roosevelt | ||
| 33 | Harry S. Truman | ||
| 35 | John F. Kennedy | ||
| 36 | Lyndon B. Johnson | ||
| 39 | Jimmy Carter | ||
| Undergraduate Degree | 17 | ||
| 2 | John Adams | ||
| 3 | Thomas Jefferson | ||
| 4 | James Madison | ||
| 6 | John Quincy Adams | ||
| 10 | John Tyler | ||
| 11 | James K. Polk | ||
| 15 | James Buchanan | ||
| 18 | Ulysses S. Grant | ||
| 20 | James A. Garfield | ||
| 23 | Benjamin Harrison | ||
| 29 | Warren G. Harding | ||
| 30 | Calvin Coolidge | ||
| 31 | Herbert Hoover | ||
| 34 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | ||
| 40 | Ronald Reagan | ||
| 41 | George H. W. Bush | ||
| 45 | Donald J. Trump | ||
| Attended Undergraduate School | 1 | ||
| 5 | James Monroe | ||
| High School or Equivalent | 6 | ||
| 1 | George Washington | ||
| 7 | Andrew Jackson | ||
| 8 | Martin Van Buren | ||
| 12 | Zachary Taylor | ||
| 13 | Millard Fillmore | ||
| 22 & 24 | Grover Cleveland | ||
| No Formal Education | 2 | ||
| 16 | Abraham Lincoln | ||
| 17 | Andrew Johnson |
Return to Presidential Facts