8 U.S. Presidents Who Struggled in School
Given the importance of the position of president of the United States, you might expect those who have held the role to wield academic credentials that distinguish them from the general public. Some presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Woodrow Wilson, to name a few, certainly demonstrated their advanced brainpower as students. Even many of those who came of age in the rough-and-tumble frontier years of the 19th century showed a capacity for learning in spite of limited opportunities, with Abraham Lincoln standing as the most famous example of a largely self-taught commander-in-chief.
Yet, there are also a fair share of presidents who either treated their school days as a necessary nuisance to slog through or required some extra assistance to avoid failing grades and expulsion. Here are eight U.S. presidents who encountered more adversity than they wanted in the halls of academia.
Zachary Taylor
Reared by a prominent landowning family outside Louisville, Kentucky, Zachary Taylor attended at least two local schools as a child. However, one has to question just how much the 12th president learned in these classrooms, as his earliest surviving writing (from when he was a young man) reveals severe deficiencies in spelling, grammar, and penmanship.
Part of this may be attributable to the quality of schooling available on the Kentucky frontier, but it’s also likely this son of a Revolutionary War officer found his attention drawn to what he considered more exciting possibilities. Sure enough, Taylor struck out on what became a lengthy military career in 1808, although he was said to have developed a greater appreciation for education as he aged.
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Franklin Pierce
Popular and outgoing, Franklin Pierce far preferred playing outdoors and socializing to hitting the books as a child. Such lax personal discipline proved problematic after "Handsome Frank," as the future president was known, enrolled at Bowdoin College. Left to his own accord, Pierce frequently snuck out to a local tavern, skipped study sessions, and spent his free time fishing, until learning after two years that he ranked dead last academically in his class. To his credit, Pierce took the news as a wake-up call, and he improved his work habits and performance enough to finish fifth among the 14 graduating students in 1824.
James Buchanan
The oldest son of a prosperous Pennsylvania merchant, James Buchanan excelled in the classic curriculum of his local academy and became the rare early-19th-century American to have both the intellect and financial means to attend college. However, Buchanan nearly blew his shot when he was expelled from Dickinson College for getting involved with a rowdy group of fellow students who caused mayhem both on and off campus. Reinstated with the help of family connections, the future president remained on good behavior from that point forward and graduated with honors.
Ulysses S. Grant
Outside of an aptitude for math and an innate wizardry for connecting with horses, young Ulysses S. Grant offered little reason to expect that his would become among the most famous names in American history. The future president showed minimal interest in writing and rarely spoke in class, flummoxing locals who learned that the unremarkable boy had secured a spot in the United States Military Academy through his father's efforts.
At West Point, Grant dazzled classmates with his horsemanship skills and uncovered a talent for drawing, but otherwise struggled in French and ethics classes. He finished a middle-of-the-pack 21st out of 39 in his graduating class of 1843, paving the way for the mediocrity that would follow until his ascent to stardom in the Civil War.
Herbert Hoover
To be fair, the Ohio-born Herbert Hoover received a limited formal education after being orphaned at age 9; sent to live with family in Oregon, he was pulled from school at age 14 to help with his uncle's business. Setting his sights on a career as a mining engineer, Hoover took the entrance exams for the brand-new Stanford University in the spring of 1891 and failed all of them except for math.
Although he performed well enough to gain entry to Stanford on his second try, Hoover still failed the English composition section, and he never managed to get over the hump in that area despite proving a gifted geology student. It took the intervention of a paleontologist professor, who demonstrated Hoover's capabilities for writing strong research papers to the chair of the English department, for the 31st president to earn the passing grade needed to collect his geology degree in 1895.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
An athletic child who enjoyed football and baseball, Dwight D. Eisenhower found an outlet for his relentless energy amid the physically demanding programs of the United States Military Academy. However, a knee injury suffered on the football gridiron as a sophomore seemingly sent "Ike" into a tailspin; his grades plummeted and demerits accumulated, leaving the future president on shaky academic footing. Eisenhower pulled himself together after becoming a student football coach, managing to finish 61st out of 164 students in his class of 1915, although he ranked a lowly 125th in West Point's "conduct" category.
John F. Kennedy
A look at John F. Kennedy's academic record suggests a young man who benefited from being the son of a wealthy and powerful politician. Focused on sports and social activities at the exclusive Choate preparatory school in Connecticut, Kennedy flunked French and Latin as a freshman, and was briefly expelled for his part in a planned prank as a senior.
Little changed in his first years at Harvard University, as JFK again sunk his energies into football and swimming and largely underwhelmed his professors. However, Kennedy soon grasped the opportunity afforded by his station in life, as his trips to Europe on the eve of World War II brought into focus a possible career in public service. JFK's grades significantly improved over his final years, and his senior thesis, originally titled "Appeasement at Munich: The Inevitable Result of the Slowness of Conversion of the British Democracy From a Disarmament to a Rearmament Policy," earned acclaim after being published in 1940 as the book Why England Slept.
Ronald Reagan
A shy, bookish child, Ronald Reagan came into his own as a teenager after realizing he simply needed a pair of glasses to properly see the world around him. He subsequently became one of the most popular students at Dixon High School in Illinois, earning a letter as a varsity football player while serving as president of the student body and dramatics club.
At Eureka College, Reagan added swimming to his football and acting extracurriculars, while living in a fraternity room that doubled as the gathering place for his frat brothers' pinochle games. But for all his interests, "the Gipper" was never a strong student; he scored just one "A" at Eureka, in a class called "Fundamentals of Sports," while his senior year GPA of 1.96 was the highest of his college tenure. Returning to campus years later to accept an honorary degree, Reagan joked, "I thought my first Eureka degree was an honorary one."
