College Degrees of the Stars

We all know that Lisa Kudrow is the ditsy single girl on Friends and Reese Witherspoon is a Harvard educated lawyer on Legally Blonde but what is their real education level?

While most salaries are based off of education, the top twenty celebrities made $529 million last year and only two had college degrees.  So how did your favorite celebrities fare during their college careers and what were they reading about in the university library, we’ve compiled a roundup of celebrity graduates that might surprise you.

Oprah Winfrey: graduated from Tennessee State University majoring in speech and drama.

Jerry Bruckheimer: graduated from the University of Arizona, majoring in Psychology.

Steven Spielberg: graduated fairly recently (2001) from the California State University at Long Beach with a degree in Film and Electronic Arts. 

Jerry Seinfeld: graduated from Queens College in theater and communications

David Letterman: graduated from Ball State University with a degree in broadcasting

Donald Trump: graduated from University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance with a degree in economics.

Jay Leno: graduated from Emerson College in speech therapy. 

Adam Sandler: graduated from NYU with a master’s in fine arts.

Rowan Atkinson: The real life Mr. Bean earned a master’s in electrical engineering.

Will Ferrell: graduated from the University of Southern California in sports information.

Eva Longoria: graduated from Texas A&M University-Kingsville where she completed a degree in kinesiology in 1998.

Maggie Gyllenhaal: degree in eastern religions from Columbia University.

Kevin Costner: graduated from California State University with a degree in business.

Tommy Lee Jones: A Harvard University alum with a degree in English. 

Denzel Washington: received a journalism from Fordham University in 1977.  

Tim Allen: graduated from Western Michigan University in 1976 with a degree in communications.

Of course, these facts probably don’t help in your college search because it would be silly to choose a degree based on your favorite celebrity, but it is important to realize that even many of the rich and famous have college degrees that provided them a well-rounded education.  If dreams of Hollywood and movie stars is what your ultimate goal is, go for it! But remember that it might be important to have a degree to fall back on if the movie career doesn’t work out.