Story Highlights
- historical event: So far, the only the president who managed to do that is Thomas Woodrow Wilson. He had a Ph.D. in history and political science.
On this day the famous Thomas Woodrow Wilson was elected U.S. President. He was the first and only U.S. president with a doctorate. It is quite disappointing that no other American president managed to attain the highest academic degree of Doctor of Science. Not even highly educated presidents like Bill Clinton (Yale) or Barack Obama (Harvard) have achieved this.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson graduated from the prestigious Princeton University (where Albert Einstein taught for many years). Wilson got his Ph.D. in history and political science at the famous Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. It is one of the most respected American universities, and so far as many as 37 Nobel Prize winners have studied or worked there.
It is interesting that Wilson reportedly had to learn German in order to receive his doctorate. The full title of his doctoral thesis was: “Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics”.
Wilson became a lecturer at Princeton University and was even elected rector of the university, with the title of “President of Princeton University”. Interestingly, he was the first rector of Princeton who was not a cleric. From the position of rector, he moved to the position of Governor of New Jersey (where Princeton is located), and was then elected President of the United States.
