Presidential Colleges

Harvard University

As they used to say on Match Game, "Dumb Donald is so dumb!" How did Donald Trump get into Fordham, let alone Penn? Same way George W. Bush got into Yale, then Harvard Business School: His father's money.

A method that was not available for either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. At least Joe Biden had his father still alive, well into his political career, but he couldn't afford to send him to a fancy college: He had to earn a scholarship.

Ivy League Schools

Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, outside Boston: John Adams, Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Master of Arts (M.A.); John Quincy Adams, B.A. and M.A.; Rutherford B. Hayes, Bachelor of Laws; Theodore Roosevelt, B.A.; Franklin D. Roosevelt, B.A.; John F. Kennedy, B.A.; George W. Bush, Master of Business Administration (MBA); Barack Obama, Juris Doctor (J.D.).

Adlai Stevenson, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1952 and 1956, attended Harvard Law School, but did not graduate. Michael Dukakis, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 1988, graduated from Harvard Law, having gotten his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, outside Philadelphia. Al Gore, Bill Clinton's Vice President and the unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 2000, got his B.A. degree from Harvard. Mitt Romney, unsuccessful Republican nominee in 2012, got his MBA and his J.D. from Harvard.

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, about halfway between New York and Philadelphia: James Madison, B.A.; Woodrow Wilson, B.A., later serving as a professor there, and as its President; John F. Kennedy, transferring to Harvard. Adlai Stevenson got his undergraduate degree from Princeton.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: William Henry Harrison, attended but no degree; Donald Trump, Bachelor of Science (B.S.), where one of his professors, William T. Kelley, said, "Donald Trump was the dumbest goddam student I ever had."

Columbia University, Manhattan, New York: Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom studied law there after graduating from Harvard, but neither got a degree; Barack Obama, B.A. Thomas E. Dewey, unsuccessful Republican nominee in 1944 and 1948, got his law degree from Columbia.

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut: William Howard Taft, B.A.; Gerald Ford, Bachelor of Laws; George H.W. Bush, B.A.; Bill Clinton, J.D.; George W. Bush, B.A. John Kerry, unsuccessful Democratic nominee in 2004, got a B.A. from Yale, before getting a law degree from Boston College. Clinton met his wife, then Hillary Rodham, at Yale Law, from which she also graduated, having previously earned a B.A. from Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, outside Boston. JD Vance, Donald Trump's 2nd Vice President, also has a law degree from Yale, and a B.A. from Ohio State University.

Service Academies

United States Military Academy, West Point, New York, outside New York City: Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower, each earning a B.S.

United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland: Jimmy Carter, B.S. John McCain, unsuccessful 2008 Republican nominee, was also a graduate.

Football Bowl Subdivision (formerly Division I-A) Schools

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: James K. Polk, B.A.

Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, outside Cincinnati: Benjamin Harrison, B.A.

University of Cincinnati: William Howard Taft, Bachelor of Laws.

Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, outside San Francisco: Herbert Hoover, Bachelor of Science; John F. Kennedy, briefly attending graduate school there. Mitt Romney attended Stanford before getting a B.A. from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Duke University, Durham, North Carolina: Richard Nixon, Bachelor of Laws.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, outside Detroit: Gerald Ford, B.A. Thomas Dewey got his undergraduate degree from Michigan.

Georgia Institute of Technology (a.k.a. Georgia Tech), Atlanta: Jimmy Carter, transferred.

Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York: Joe Biden, J.D.

John Nance Garner, FDR's 1st Vice President and a former Speaker of the House, attended Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but did not graduate. Al Gore also attended Vanderbilt, before transferring to Harvard. Henry A. Wallace, FDR's 2nd Vice President, graduated from Iowa State University in Ames. FDR's 3rd Vice President was Harry Truman.

Barry Goldwater, unsuccessful 1964 Republican nominee, attended the University of Arizona, but did not graduate. He remains the most recent nominee of either major party without a college degree.

Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's Vice President and the unsuccessful 1968 Democratic nominee, graduated from the University of Minnesota. So did Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's Vice President and the unsuccessful 1984 Democratic nominee, after previously attending Macalaster College in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Dan Quayle, George H.W. Bush's Vice President, got his law degree from Indiana University, after getting his undergraduate degree from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Mike Pence, Donald Trump's 1st Vice President, also got a law degree from IU, after earning a B.A. from Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana.

Dick Cheney, George W. Bush's Vice President, got a B.A. and an M.A. from the University of Wyoming, having previously attended Yale and the University of Wisconsin. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's Vice President and the unsuccessful 2024 Democratic nominee, graduated from the University of California's Law School, in San Francisco, across the Bay from the main campus in Berkeley, after earning her B.A. from Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Others

College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, outside Norfolk: Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, both studied there, but neither ever received a degree; John Tyler, B.A.

Hampden-Sydney College, Hampden Sydney, Virginia: William Henry Harrison, attended but no degree.

Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine: Franklin Pierce, B.A.

Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, outside Harrisburg: James Buchanan.

Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, outside Columbus: Rutherford B. Hayes, B.A.

Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio, outside Cleveland: James Garfield, attended but did not graduate, as they were unable to grant degrees at the time.

Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts: James Garfield, B.A.

Union College, Schenectady, New York, outside Albany: Chester Arthur, B.A.; Jimmy Carter, took a single course in nuclear physics there.

Ohio Military Institute, Cincinnati, now defunct: Benjamin Harrison, who did not graduate.

Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania, outside Erie: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

University of Mount Union, Alliance, Ohio, outside Cleveland: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

Albany Law School, Albany, New York: William McKinley, who did not graduate.

Davidson College, Davidson, North Carolina, outside Charlotte: Woodrow Wilson, before transferring to Princeton.

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson, Ph.D., the 1st person to earn one who became President. Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon's 1st Vice President, attended Hopkins briefly, and later got a law degree from the University of Baltimore.

Ohio Central College, Iberia, Ohio, outside Columbus: Warren G. Harding, B.S.

Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts: Calvin Coolidge, B.A.

University of Missouri at Kansas City: Harry Truman, briefly attended its School of Law, remains the last President who did not graduate from college.

Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson, B.S.

Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.: Lyndon B. Johnson, attended its law school but did not graduate; Bill Clinton, B.S.

Whittier College, Whittier, California, outside Los Angeles: Richard Nixon, B.A.

Georgia Southwestern State University, Americus, Georgia: Jimmy Carter, transferred.

Eureka College, Eureka, Illinois: Ronald Reagan, B.A.

Oxford University, Oxford, England: Bill Clinton, so far the only Rhodes Scholar to become President.

Occidental College, Los Angeles: Barack Obama, transferred.

Fordham University, Bronx, New York: Donald Trump, transferred.

University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware: Joe Biden, B.A.

Alben Barkley, Harry Truman's Vice President, graduated from Marvin College in Clinton, Kentucky; and then from Emory College in Oxford, Georgia, now Emory University in Atlanta. George McGovern, unsuccessful 1972 Democratic nominee, graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University in his hometown of Mitchell, South Dakota.

Bob Dole, unsuccessful 1996 Republican nominee, got a B.A. and a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas.

No college at all

George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, Grover Cleveland.