- 2020 will mark the first time since 1984 that the Democratic ticket did not include a graduate of an Ivy League university.
- Former Vice President
Joe Biden went to the University of Delaware for undergrad and Syracuse University for law school. - Biden tapped Sen. Kamala Harris to be his running mate on Tuesday.
- Harris attended Howard University before earning a law degree from the University of California, Hastings.
Former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday announced that he'd picked Sen. Kamala Harris of California to be his vice presidential running mate.
Harris's selection is historic. The California senator is biracial — she's the daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father.
She would be the first woman vice president, and is set to become the first woman of color to be nominated by either major party for vice president.
But the 2020 Democratic ticket is also historic in another way. For the first time since 1984, both of the candidates on the ticket did not go to an Ivy League university.
Biden went to the University of Delaware for undergrad, before going to law school at Syracuse University. Harris went to Howard University in Washington, DC, for undergrad before earning a law degree from the University of California, Hastings. As an alumna of Howard, Harris will also be the first graduate of historically black colleges and universities to be on a major party ticket.
The Democratic presidential and vice presidential candidates since 1984 and their educational histories:
- 2016:
- Hillary Clinton: Wellesley College; Yale Law School
- Tim Kaine: University of Missouri; Harvard Law School
- 2008:
- Barack Obama: Columbia University; Harvard Law School
- Joe Biden: University of Delaware; Syracuse University College of Law
- 2004:
- John Kerry: Yale University; Boston College Law School
- John Edwards: North Carolina State University; University of North Carolina
School of Law
- 2000:
- Al Gore: Harvard College
- Joe Lieberman: Yale University; Yale Law School
- 1992, 1996:
- Bill Clinton: Georgetown University; University of Oxford; Yale Law School
- Al Gore: Harvard College
- 1988:
- Michael Dukakis: Swarthmore College; Harvard Law School
- Lloyd Bentsen: University of Texas Law School
- 1984:
- Walter Mondale: University of Minnesota; University of Minnesota Law School
- Geraldine Ferraro: Marymount Manhattan College; Fordham University School of Law
President Donald Trump attended an Ivy League school, graduating from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Vice President Mike Pence did not, attending undergrad at Hanover College before earning his law degree from the Robert H. McKinney School of Law at Indiana University