Hollywood is a fickle industry, and not everyone makes it — especially when they're not coming from an already-established industry family. So it makes sense that these 15 celebrity moms wanted to have backup plans just in case. So they all went to college, just like many of us, and got degrees in a variety of subjects.
There are a number of celeb mamas deemed the "most educated", at least in the traditional sense. Some of them always knew they wanted to be actors, so they majored in theater or playwriting, but others majored in subjects like biology, sociology, and international relations, stumbling into acting as kind of a secondary life plan that became their full-time gig.
Not only are these celeb moms great at their jobs and raising their kids, but they're also super smart. Talk about #MomGoals.
Natalie Portman
In between starring in the Star Wars prequels, Natalie Portman was busy getting a degree in psychology from Harvard University. According to Insider, this smarty-pants has even had two papers published in scientific journals. We always knew Padmé Amidala was an icon to look up to.
Eva Longoria
Eva Longoria's degree in kinesiology (the study of body movement) didn't come easily for her. According to Texas Monthly, she worked six jobs to put herself through Texas A&M. At the time, she wanted to use her degree to become a sports trainer, but life had other plans for her.
Ellie Kemper
Ellie Kemper, star of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Office, went to two prestigious colleges. In 2002, she graduated from Princeton with a degree in English. Then, she went to the University of Oxford for a graduate degree in English literature. Basically, no one knows English better than Ellie at this point.
Rashida Jones
Kemper's Office costar Rashida Jones — who was also on Parks and Rec — is an alumna of Harvard, just like Natalie Portman. She graduated in 1997 with a degree in comparative religion. That year, she also had her very first professional acting role in the TV miniseries The Last Don. Soon, she dropped that degree and hit Hollywood full-time.
Mindy Kaling
The cast of The Office sure was an educated one. Writer and actor Mindy Kaling is another celebrity who got a college degree before becoming a full-time member of the film and TV industry. She's also one of the few who actually ended up going into a field close to what she majored in. Mindy graduated from Dartmouth in 2001 with a degree in playwriting.
Carrie Underwood
Carrie didn't drop everything else in her life when she won American Idol. No, she went on to finish her mass communications/journalism degree at Northeastern University, graduating magna cum laude in 2006. Carrie ended up not really needing that degree to go on to have her successful singing career, but it's still supercool that she completed it.
Mayim Bialik
The Big Bang Theory star is kind of a big deal, because she has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. Basically, Mayim is just as smart — if not smarter — than her BBT character. Even as she continues to act, Mayim is also dedicated to developing learning programs to help teach kids about science.
Kourtney Kardashian
As the oldest Kardashian child, Kourtney didn't have the luxury that Kendall and Kylie Jenner had, knowing that they were going to be just fine career- and money-wise — even without going to college. Kourtney had to actually prepare for a regular future, so she went to the University of Arizona, majoring in theater arts and graduating in 2002. What she does for a living now is actually not too far off from what she got her degree in!
Lisa Kudrow
Long before she landed her career-making role on Friends in the '90s, Lisa Kudrow went to college for a degree in biology. She ended up graduating from Vassar in 1985, and she's remained close to the school ever since. She's now on the college's board of trustees.
It's so un-Phoebe of her.
Kerry Washington
Just like her high-powered Scandal character, Kerry Washington knows her way around Washington, DC, because she went to college at George Washington University. According to ABC News, she got to design her own major, which had an emphasis on acting — as well as anthropology, sociology, and psychology.
Elizabeth Banks
College was fruitful in a couple of ways for Hunger Games and Pitch Perfect star Elizabeth Banks. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in communications and theater arts — and she also met her husband there on the first day of school. "I didn't meet my husband and think, I've met the man I'm going to marry," she's said. "I was like, he's cute … I'm 18 and in college."
But what she thought would be a casual fling turned into a decades-long romance.
Meryl Streep
Meryl Streep is undoubtedly one of the best actors around, and that may be due to her college education. She studied drama at not one, but two prestigious institutions. First, she went to Vassar — like Lisa Kudrow! — to study drama, and then she secured a scholarship to Yale School of Drama.
The rest was history.
Gabrielle Union
Gabrielle Union went to UCLA to major in sociology, and she's said that it meant a lot to her to be able to complete a college degree. "You have to get a college degree just to put a toe in the door," she's said. "If you want to be competitive in this country, you need a formal education. I don't care what you have to do, I worked to get through school."
Jennifer Garner
Jennifer Garner graduated from Ohio's Denison University in 1994, after switching her major from chemistry to theater. Once she made the change, she charged headfirst into the acting world. Soon after graduating, she landed her first role in the 1995 TV movie Zoya.
America Ferrera
She may be an actress now, but America Ferrera still pulls from her international relations degree from the University of Southern California in other ways. "I am using so much of what I learned in the School of International Relations in my life," Ferrera has said. "I've learned about the root causes of so many issues I'm passionate about and how to improve people's lives. Sometimes the issues have taken me across the world, sometimes here in our own backyard."
