In another thread of mine about Elizabeth II’s honorary doctorates, senoy remarked upon the Queen’s embarrassment at her lack of formal education. This got me thinking, do any members of the British royal family have formal education over and above an undergraduate degree? That is, are there any with real doctorates or even a real Master’s degree? (By “real” I mean that the degree was conferred after formally enrolling in a program that required coursework, research, a thesis, and/or examinations. This discounts honorary doctorates and the Master’s degrees that Oxbridge hand out like free candy to former students.)
I browsed through the first dozen or so entries in Wikipedia’s line of succession to the British throne but so far it looks like everyone has at most a B.A. or B.Sc. (Charles has a free-candy M.A. from Cambridge, which doesn’t count for the purposes of this question.) How far down the list do I need to go before I find someone with a real Master’s degree? How about a doctorate? If there aren’t any on the list, then how about the royal families of other countries?
The Swedish and Thai royal families are pretty well educated. The eldest daughter of the King of Thailand has a master’s in public health from UCLA; her sister has a masters in Sanskrit and Pali. Another Thai princess has a B.S. in mathematics. Prince Pavlos of Greece has a master’s in International relations law and organization.
One Thai princess was in my class at MIT. I don’t know if she went on to get an advanced degree, but I do know she married a Westerner and renounced her royal position.
I think in some countries law is studied at the undergraduate level (unlike the US). I can’t tell if her law degree was undergrad or grad school level.
Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (who is 26th in line to the throne) was an architect and went through the regular academic path for his degree. He worked as a partner in an architectural firm before his older brother died and made him the heir to the family title.
I was in grad school with some members of the Saudi royal family getting Masters. One I knew fairly well. Went back to become head of IT or some such for the country. Not the best candidate, IMHO.
Of course being a member of the Saudi royal family isn’t as exclusive as many others.
I see that his M.A. is a candy degree, but it looks like his architectural Diploma from Cambridge is legitimate. Wikipedia suggests that this is equivalent to a real Master’s degree. Unless anyone can come up with someone earlier in the line of succession, it looks like we have a winner in the Master’s category.
King Willem-Alexander has a Masters in History. Crown Prince Fredrick has his in Political Science. Crown Prince Haakon has one in Developmental Studies (i.e. International Development) from the London School of Economics. King Felipe has one in Foreign Service from Georgetown
Japanese Emperor Akihito is a published researcher in ichthyology. If I recall correctly he is an expert on gobies. Not sure if he has a real degree or an honorary one, but either way, he has apparently been a real scientist.
Yup. The Cambridge diploma in architecture was a postgraduate diploma; you had to have a BA or equivalent to enroll, and there was then a two-year course leading up to the diploma. It’s no longer offered; it has been replaced by the M Phil in Architecture and Urban Design.