Where did Barack Obama go to college?

Barack Obama’s presidency was marred with conspiracy theories from his detractors, and one of the most prominent being about his citizenship and education. There were questions about where he attended school, his “missing” transcripts, and the alleged use of a fake identity.

In 2012, Donald Trump offered to donate $5 million to Obama’s choice of charity if he released his passport history and college records to the public. Obama didn’t engage. Besides, disclosing educational records isn’t a requirement to run for the presidency, and it was Obama’s prerogative whether or not to reveal personal details such as those.

Barack Obama’s first years of college

Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii (not in Kenya, as many alleged), in 1961, and he spent time in different locations during his childhood, including Seattle, Washington, and Jakarta, Indonesia, before returning to Hawaii in 1971. After graduating high school in 1979, Obama was accepted into several colleges but decided to enroll at Occidental College, also known as Oxy, in Los Angeles, to study political science and international affairs. One of the reasons he chose the school, as he revealed in his memoir, was to be closer to a girl from Brentwood, California, whom he met while she was on vacation in Hawaii.

There, where he was known as Barry, he went through the motions and said he was “indifferent” toward college. He enjoyed listening to Jimi Hendrix and Billie Holiday, and as a close friend at Oxy recalled, he was a big smoker and loved wearing “stupid hats.” It was at Oxy where Obama delivered his first public speech during an anti-apartheid rally in 1981. After two years at Oxy, however, it was time for a change.

The Columbia years

In 1981 at 20 years old, Obama transferred to Columbia University in New York, where he continued his political science studies. He wanted surroundings and said, “I figured that if there weren’t any more black students at Columbia than there were at Oxy, I’d at least be in the heart of it.” His environment wasn’t the only thing that changed, though. 

Obama decided to be more serious about his studies and described his time there as being like a monk. “I spent a lot of time in the library. I didn’t socialize that much,” he said in an interview with Columbia College Today. He continued to be involved in anti-apartheid movements and was also part of the Black Students Organization. Obama graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a 3.7 GPA.

Barack Obama graduated with a Latin honor from Harvard Law School

After graduating from Columbia, Obama worked as a researcher, community organizer, and consultant before enrolling at Harvard Law School in 1988 at 27 years old. He became an editor for the Harvard Law Review and in 1990, was elected the first black president of the journal. 

People around Obama took notice of his conduct in and out of the classroom. His professor, Laurence Tribe, described him as curious, mature, and intelligent. Another professor, Martha Minow, spoke of how Obama had the respect of his peers. Fellow student Artur Davis predicted that Obama would either be the POTUS or a Supreme Court justice. Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1991.

Obama worked as a civil rights attorney and constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School before serving as Illinois senator (1997 to 2004) and U.S. Senator (2007 to 2008). He became the first African-American president and 44th president of the United States in 2009.