{"id":14189,"date":"2014-05-22T11:30:04","date_gmt":"2014-05-22T16:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/degree-from-harvard-or-yale-most-americans-say-it-doesnt-matter-for-their-president\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:21:52","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:21:52","slug":"degree-from-harvard-or-yale-most-americans-say-it-doesnt-matter-for-their-president","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/05\/22\/degree-from-harvard-or-yale-most-americans-say-it-doesnt-matter-for-their-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Fancy degree? Most Americans say it\u2019s not required to be president"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"where<\/a><\/figure>\n\n

For almost three decades, the path to the White House has wound through the ivy-coated campuses of the United States’ elite universities. And despite the populist tinge of much of U.S. politics these days, that fact doesn’t appear to bother most Americans.<\/p>\n\n

In a new Pew Research Center survey<\/a>, a large majority — 74% — of Americans say it wouldn’t matter to them\u00a0one way or another\u00a0if a presidential candidate went to \u201ca prestigious university such as Harvard or Yale.\u201d About a quarter say it would\u00a0matter: 19% say they’d be more likely to support such a candidate while 6% would be less likely. Those views have changed very little since 2007.<\/p>\n\n

Since the election of George H.W. Bush (Yale ’48) in 1988, every president<\/a> has had an undergraduate or graduate degree, or both, from an Ivy League school. The 2012 election, in fact, was an all-Harvard affair pitting Barack Obama (J.D., class of 1991, following his bachelor’s degree from Columbia) against Mitt Romney (J.D.\/MBA, class of 1975, with his bachelor’s from Brigham Young University). Harvard has the greatest claim to being a White House prep school: Eight presidents<\/a> have earned bachelor’s or graduate degrees there, starting with John Adams (bachelor’s 1755, master’s 1758).<\/p>\n\n

It wasn’t always thus. For much of the nation’s history a college education was a perquisite for the rich, well-connected or both; of the first 24 men who became president, 11 had not graduated from college at all (though three of those had attended some college without earning a degree). The last president to win the White House without having a college degree was Harry Truman, who studied briefly at a local business college and a law school but didn’t graduate from either. (Though many presidents have been\u00a0lawyers, attending law school wasn’t common until the late 19th century; before that<\/a>, would-be\u00a0lawyers typically either “read law” on their own or apprenticed themselves to an established lawyer or firm.)<\/p>\n\n

Future presidents who did attend college overwhelmingly went to private institutions (though to be fair, there weren’t many public colleges or universities until after the Civil War<\/a>). In total, only nine presidents have received their undergraduate degrees from public universities (including the service academies).<\/p>\n\n

The Pew Research survey found that young people, minorities and those with less education are more likely to have a positive view of a candidate who attended a prestigious university. Roughly a quarter of liberal Democrats (27%) say they would be more likely to support such a candidate, compared with just 11% of conservative Republicans.<\/p>\n\n

There’s no group in which more would have a negative than positive reaction to a candidate with an elite education, including Republicans and leaners who agree with the Tea Party. 10% of Tea Party Republicans say they would be more likely to support a candidate who graduated from a prestigious school, 10% said less likely, and 79% say it wouldn\u2019t matter.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent presidents and presidential candidates have tended to have elite college educations — a fact that doesn’t appear to bother many Americans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"apple_news_api_pending":"1713063859","relatedPosts":[],"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0},"categories":[39],"bylines":[842],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[520],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14189","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-us-elections-voters","bylines-drew-desilver","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-politics"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":484,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/05\/22\/degree-from-harvard-or-yale-most-americans-say-it-doesnt-matter-for-their-president\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"Fancy degree? 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