14 child stars who earned college degrees after becoming famous

Foster became famous when she was just 5 years old, with a role in the sitcom "Mayberry R.F.D.," and she won critical acclaim as a teenager acting in Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver."

Foster continued acting over summer vacations during her time at Yale, where she wrote her thesis on the work of Toni Morrison.

Foster returned to acting full-time after college, winning two best actress Oscars for "The Accused" and "Silence of the Lambs." She most recently appeared in "Hotel Artemis" and "The Mauritanian."

Cohen quit acting, but he's stayed in the industry as an entertainment lawyer. After earning his law degree, he cofounded the entertainment law firm Cohen Gardner in 2002.

Osment took a hiatus from Hollywood while enrolled at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He graduated in 2011.

"A film like 'The Sixth Sense' burns an image of who you are into people's minds," Osment told The New Yorker in 2014. "In the midst of that it can be difficult to know who you are, or who you are becoming. College seemed like a manageable next step, a place where I could figure that stuff out."

Osment has continued acting since his graduation, appearing in shows like "Silicon Valley" and "The Boys," and movies such as Netflix's "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile." He has also lent his voice to animated series such as "American Dad!," "Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous," and "Dogs in Space."

After finishing her TV series "Blossom" in 1995, Bialik enrolled at UCLA and got her undergraduate degree in neuroscience with minors in Hebrew and Jewish studies in 2000. She went on to get a doctorate in neuroscience, receiving her PhD in 2007.

She then proceeded to play a neuroscientist on TV as Amy Farrah Fowler in "The Big Bang Theory."

Bialik currently shares "Jeopardy!" hosting duties with Ken Jennings while starring in and executive producing "Call Me Kat" on Fox.

Portman became famous at a young age, filming "Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace" while still attending Syosset High School in New York.

She went on to attend Harvard University, graduating in 2003 with a degree in psychology. She also took classes at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and guest-lectured at Columbia University on the topic of political violence. But while she dabbled in academia for a bit after college, she mostly returned to acting, winning an Oscar for her role in "Black Swan" in 2011.

Years later, Portman admitted she was nervous about going to Harvard.

"I feared people would assume I had gotten in just for being famous and not worthy of the intellectual rigor here," she said in her 2015 Class Day speech at the university. "When I got to my graduation, after four years of trying to get excited about something else, I admitted to myself that I couldn't wait to go back and make more films."

"Tia and I were part-time at Pepperdine University," Tamera told "Today" in 2018. "We would go to class, do a rehearsal or shoot and then come back to class. We would do two classes every other day and then the show on Thursday and Friday. I am happy I did; it taught me about prioritizing, and that education is important. It taught me dedication and hard work too. If you put your mind to it, you can do it. It took me seven years to graduate."

Tamera hosted the daytime talk show, "The Real," for seven years, and acted in "A Christmas Miracle" in 2019.

Tia has also continued acting, including roles in "Baggage Claim" and "Indivisible," and a role on the TV show "Family Reunion."

Watson enrolled at Brown in 2009 and took time off to film the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" movies. She also studied abroad at the University of Oxford, and she graduated in 2014.

"I really like the fact that it has a very open curriculum, that there aren't any requirements," Watson told Rookie magazine about her decision to attend Brown in 2013. "Really, I've kind of been in charge of my own education since I started out on Potter when I was 9 or 10, and I liked that I could design my own major if I wanted to, and I could take independent studies if I wanted to on subjects that weren't necessarily in the curriculum."

Watson now works as an advocate for gender equality as well as an actress, most recently appearing in Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast," "The Circle," and "Little Women."

Romano met her husband, Brendan Rooney, while studying at Barnard. They married in 2013 and have two children.

She continued doing voiceover work as Trina on "Big Hero 6: The Series," and she hosted the cooking show "Bucket List Bistro" on Fox. She also discusses her experiences as a child star on her YouTube channel.

Cole studied archaeology, and Dylan majored in video-game design. At their NYU graduation in 2015, they switched places and received each other's diplomas.

"If you look up my graduating photo you'll see. We just decided, you know, there's no reason not to. No one's going to notice," Dylan told Teen Vogue in 2015.

Cole currently plays Jughead Jones on The CW's hit drama "Riverdale." Dylan returned to acting in 2017 — he's appeared in music videos and voiced video games, and he played Trevor in 2020's "When We Collided." He also opened the brewery All-Wise Meadery with two business partners in 2018.

Fanning enrolled in NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study in 2011 and slowly worked towards her degree while continuing to shoot films.

"They've been very flexible with my schedule and allowed me to do independent studies and take classes and sort of come in and out," Fanning told Indiewire in 2015. "Everybody's been very understanding and supportive of that. It's kind of what Gallatin was founded upon, so it's really worked for me."

Fanning's studies focused on the portrayal of women in film.

"It's frustrating that you still have to talk about it," she told Elle in 2016. "As part of my school, I've studied lots of different periods, and if you go back to, like, 'The Taming of the Shrew,' it's talking about the disparity between genders, and it's crazy that we still haven't cracked that."

Best known for the Nickelodeon shows "iCarly" and "Drake and Josh," as well as the films "School of Rock" and "Despicable Me," Cosgrove is now a student at the University of Southern California.

In a 2017 appearance on "Live with Kelly and Ryan," Cosgrove spoke about juggling her acting career with her studies.

"I pretty much just focus on school when I'm at school," she said. "With 'Despicable Me,' it was cool because it's voiceover, so that's easy. I could just go in on the weekends."

She currently stars in the "iCarly" reboot, and she will return to voice Margo in "Despicable Me 4."

Shahidi is majoring in sociology and African-American studies. She celebrated finishing her 136-page thesis in a video posted to Instagram in March.

Shahidi has balanced her acting career with her studies, ducking out of the 2021 Primetime Emmys early in order to make it to class the next day.

"The lovely people at the Academy really helped me out because I was like, 'Guys, I have a hard out to make this flight,'" she told Entertainment Tonight.