Bill Clinton Education – School Life

Clinton was born William Jefferson Blythe III on August 19, 1946, at Julia Chester Hospital in Hope, Arkansas.

In Hot Springs, Clinton attended St. John’s Catholic Elementary School, Ramble Elementary School, and Hot Springs High School, where he was an active student leader, avid reader, and musician.

Clinton was in the chorus and played the tenor saxophone, winning first chair in the state band’s saxophone section.

Clinton began an interest in law at Hot Springs High, when he took up the challenge to argue the defense of the ancient Roman Senator Catiline in a mock trial in his Latin class.

Bill Clinton Education – University Education

Bill Clinton Education started when the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington. He received a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service degree in 1968.

Upon graduating from Georgetown in 1968, Clinton won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford. Here he initially read for a B.Phil. in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics but transferred to a B.Litt. in politics.

Bill Clinton Education – Army Draft

Clinton did not expect the second year because of the draft and he switched programs; this type of activity was common among other Rhodes Scholars from his cohort.

He had received an offer to study at Yale Law School, Yale University, but he left early to return to the United States and did not receive a degree from Oxford.

During the Vietnam War, Clinton received educational draft deferments while he was in England in 1968 and 1969. While at Oxford, he participated in Vietnam War protests and organized a Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam event in October 1969.

He was planning to attend law school in the U.S. and was aware that he might lose his draft deferment.

Clinton tried unsuccessfully to obtain positions in the National Guard or Air Force. Later he then made arrangements to join the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at the University of Arkansas.

Clinton registered for the draft and received a high number (311), meaning that those whose birthdays had been drawn as numbers 1 to 310 would have to be drafted before him, making it unlikely that he would be drafted.

After Oxford, Clinton attended Yale Law School and earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1973. In 1971, he met fellow law student Hillary Rodham in the Yale Law Library; she was a class year ahead of him. They began dating and were soon inseparable.

After only about a month, Clinton postponed his summer plans to be a coordinator for the George McGovern campaign for the 1972 United States presidential election in order to move in with her in California.

The couple continued living together in New Haven when they returned to law school.