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 Degree10
14Franklin Pierce
19Rutherford B. Hayes
27William H. Taft
28Woodrow Wilson
37Richard M. Nixon
38Gerald R. Ford
42Bill Clinton
43George W. Bush
44Barack Obama
46Joe Biden
Attended Graduate School9
9William Henry Harrison
21Chester A. Arthur
25William McKinley
26Theodore Roosevelt
32Franklin D. Roosevelt
33Harry S. Truman
35John F. Kennedy
36Lyndon B. Johnson
39Jimmy Carter
Undergraduate Degree17
2John Adams
3Thomas Jefferson
4James Madison
6John Quincy Adams
10John Tyler
11James K. Polk
15James Buchanan
18Ulysses S. Grant
20James A. Garfield
23Benjamin Harrison
29Warren G. Harding
30Calvin Coolidge
31Herbert Hoover
34Dwight D. Eisenhower
40Ronald Reagan
41George H. W. Bush
45Donald J. Trump
Attended Undergraduate School1
5James Monroe
High School or Equivalent6
1George Washington
7Andrew Jackson
8Martin Van Buren
12Zachary Taylor
13Millard Fillmore
22 & 24Grover Cleveland
No Formal Education2
16Abraham Lincoln
17Andrew Johnson

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