The 20 Most Educated Actors And The Degrees They Hold

Celebrities With Surprising College Degrees – The Most Educated Actors & The Degrees They Hold - Gameday News
Athletes
Sports History
Search for:
Athletes
Sports History
About
Contact
Copyright
Privacy
Terms
baseball
basketball
football
hockey
soccer
Culture
Sports History
More
money
Tennis
Wrestling
Golf
performance
Celebrities With Surprising College Degrees – The Most Educated Actors & The Degrees They Hold
Trending |
3/2/26
It doesn't seem fair for one person to have beauty, fame, and fortune, while so many of us are wishing for just one! These successful stars prove that they not only have acting chops but other college degrees that they've earned, too.
What path these big stars could have ended up on, had they followed their college degree? Were you surprised to learn about these celebrities and their educational backgrounds?
Shaq Is Quite The Academic
Francois Nel/Getty Images
Shaquille O'Neal may be best known for his four NBA championship titles and for his role as a member of the 1996 gold-medal placing USA men's basketball team, but his impressive streak doesn't end there. Shaq also has an Ed.D in Human Resource Development from Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida.
Shaq earned his doctorate one year after retiring from the NBA. His doctoral capstone paper is titled, "The Duality of Humor and Aggression in Leadership Styles."
ADVERTISEMENT
Will Ferrell Is A USC Graduate
ADVERTISEMENT
Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb
ADVERTISEMENT
Will Ferrell graduated from the University of Southern California in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts in Sports Information. In 2017, Ferrell received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from the same school.
ADVERTISEMENT
The sports information program actually no longer exists. Ferrell was invited to deliver the graduating class commencement speech at the university in 2017 where he said, "Yes, you heard me, sports information. A program so difficult, so arduous, that they discontinued it eight years after I left. Those of us with sports information degrees are an elite group. We’re like the Navy Seals of USC graduates. There are very few of us, and there was a high dropout rate."
ADVERTISEMENT
Ashley Judd Earned Her Master's In Public Administration From Harvard University
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
Actress Ashley Judd won over fans of country music and then took on the big screen. During her formative years, Judd says her childhood was a bit of a mess and that she attended thirteen different schools in 12 years. Despite a lot of educational turmoil, Judd eventually landed at the University of Kentucky where she majored in French.
ADVERTISEMENT
Judd missed her own graduation, instead choosing to leave for the Peace Corps. Following her volunteer time, Judd decided to pursue a Master of Public Administration degree from the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.
ADVERTISEMENT
Sacha Baron Cohen Graduated From Cambridge
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo Credit: Pablo Cuadra/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
Sacha Baron Cohen rose to fame in the '90s, breaking through to mainstream success for his creation and portrayal of Ali G, an uneducated and jungle music-obsessed character. Since then, Cohen has become a staple of the Hollywood scene, playing ridiculous characters like Borat.
ADVERTISEMENT
It might surprise you to know that London-born Cohen attended a private school before going to one of the most prestigious colleges in England, Christ's College in Cambridge. He graduated with an upper-second-class degree in History, while also being a part of the university's dramatic society. It's hard to imagine him being serious, isn't it?
ADVERTISEMENT
Ashton Kutcher Has A Bachelor's In Biochemical Engineering
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo Credit: VCG / VCG via Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
No, we aren't punking you. Ashton Kutcher may be one of the funniest people in entertainment, but that doesn't mean he's short on knowledge (people often mistake him for an airhead). The multi-talented star attended the University of Iowa where he graduated in 1996.
ADVERTISEMENT
He earned his degree in Biochemical Engineering, which is one of the harder majors to study. He hoped to find a cure for his brother's heart disease. Talk about a jack of all trades!
ADVERTISEMENT
J. Cole Has A Bachelor's In Communications
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/Getty Images for The Meadows
ADVERTISEMENT
J. Cole, the rapper that Jay-Z famously signed first to his label Roc Nation, has all the talent and smarts. J. Cole (Jermain Cole) attended St. Johns University in New York while chasing his music dreams. In his downtime, Cole would make music and do performances on the campus, all while he was the president of the BSU (Black Student Union).
ADVERTISEMENT
Cole graduated in 2007 summa cum laude while majoring in Communications and minoring in business. He didn't get his degree until 2015, however, because he owed some money for a missing library book.
ADVERTISEMENT
Danica McKellar: Mathematics
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo by Mireya Acierto/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
While many of the celebrities on our list earned their college degrees and then became movie and TV stars, Danica McKellar went in the opposite direction.
ADVERTISEMENT
The Wonder Years star finished her incredibly popular TV show and then attended the University of California. During her time at the university, she earned a degree in Mathematics. McKellar co-authors the scientific paper titled, "Percolation and Gibbs States Multiplicity for Ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller Models on Two Dimensions, or Z2."
ADVERTISEMENT
Bradley Cooper Has A Bachelor's In English
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo Credit: Guido MARZILLA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
The stud, the myth, and the legend Bradley Cooper is also very in tune with the English language. He went to Georgetown University and was very interested in the readings he was assigned in all his classes. Cooper was brought to immediate joy when GQ asked him about his first encounter with Paradise Lost .
ADVERTISEMENT
It sounds like he was very passionate about this degree and even admitted to crying tears while reading Romeo and Juliet in the campus library.
ADVERTISEMENT
Bad Religion Singer Greg Graffin Has A Ph.D. in Zoology
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo by Barry Brecheisen/WireImage
ADVERTISEMENT
Bad Religion's Greg Graffin was only 15 years old when he co-founded the SoCal punk group. While Graffin continued to support his bandmates he also earned a double major from UCLA where he studied anthropology and geology. Graffin then remained at the school for his master's degree.
ADVERTISEMENT
Years later, already as a bonafide rockstar, Graffin attended Cornell University where he earned his P.h.D. in Zoology. Graffin's doctorate thesis is titled "Evolution, Monism, Atheism, and the Naturalist World-View: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology."
ADVERTISEMENT
Supermodel Christy Turlington Has A Master's In Public Health From Columbia
ADVERTISEMENT
Photo by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for CARE
ADVERTISEMENT
Christy Turlington rose to fame as a supermodel and now she's a fashion icon. She's also the owner of a Master's Degree in public health. Turlington rose to fame at just 17 years old when she appeared in the Duran Duran music video for the single "Notorious."
ADVERTISEMENT
After years atop the fashion world, Turlington turned her focus back to education, graduating cum laude from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study of NYU in 1999, where she earned a B.A. in Comparative Religion and Eastern Philosophy. Later, she would earn her Master’s Degree in Public Health at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She now actively uses her higher degree and celebrity to promote women's health initiatives all over the world.
ADVERTISEMENT
'The Rock' Double Majored
ADVERTISEMENT
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
ADVERTISEMENT
It's a well-known fact among his fans that Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson played football at the University of Miami,…

Text scraped from the landing page for research purposes. © respective owners. This text is sourced from the advertiser's public landing page; for removal, contact dmca@luba.media.