Where Did Josh Shapiro Go to College?

Josh Shapiro has never lost an election. His political career began in college, winning an election to become the only first-year student in school history to serve as Students’ Association president.

Shapiro’s election successes continued from there, taking him to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, the attorney general’s office, and the governor’s mansion.

Shapiro, 51, was raised in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Akiba Hebrew Academy. After graduating high school, he attended the University of Rochester, where he began as a pre-med student, studying to be a doctor.

After almost flunking out of organic chemistry and being cut from the men’s basketball team, Shapiro was approached to run for student government. His experience in the university’s Students’ Association (SA), first as a student senator and then as SA president, motivated him to pursue a political career and his bachelor’s degree in political science.

I knocked on doors, rallied with students, and together we made our campus better and improved communications between students and administrators, Shapiro told the University of Rochester. I learned the ins and outs of public service, and what it means to advocate for other people.

Following his college graduation in 1995, Shapiro moved to Washington, D.C., to work on Capitol Hill as a congressional aide and eventually chief of staff for various congressional Democrats.

During his time in Washington, he also enrolled at the Georgetown University Law Center, taking evening classes and graduating in 2002. After law school, he moved his family back to Pennsylvania, started working at the Philadelphia law firm Ballard Spahr Andrews and Ingersoll LLP, and he ran for a seat in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 2004.

He successfully won his election for the state House and was reelected every two years through 2010. He went on to be elected to the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011, serving in that position until he announced his candidacy for attorney general in 2016.

Just a year after he was reelected as attorney general in 2020, Shapiro launched his gubernatorial campaign, winning the election to become Pennsylvania’s 48th governor in 2022 and officially taking office in January 2023.

Lincoln University, the country’s oldest degree-granting historically Black university, also awarded Shapiro an honorary doctorate of humane letters when he served as the school’s commencement keynote speaker in 2023.

In January 2024, Shapiro unveiled his “Blueprint for Higher Education“ for the state, focusing on three main parts:

Whether you want to take one course to brush up on your skills, earn a certificate to qualify for a promotion, or pursue a degree that will lead to a new career — you deserve accessible, affordable higher education options, Shapiro said in a press release announcing his plan.

…That’s exactly what my plan will deliver, and we’ll build a higher education system that opens up doors of opportunity, prepares our workforce, and serves as the linchpin to Pennsylvania’s economic success.

The budget passed both the Democratic-controlled House and Republican-controlled Senate before Shapiro’s signing in July.

The budget also included an additional $10 million for student teacher stipends, $7 million to fund dual enrollment opportunities, and $2 million for first-time funding for nursing apprenticeships.

Shapiro has been critical of how the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) handled concerns over reports of rising antisemitism at the institution and pro-Palestinian protests and encampments this spring.

Following the expansion of the encampment at Penn on May 8, Shapiro said in a speech that universities have a moral responsibility and a legal responsibility to keep their students safe and free from discrimination, and expressed concerns that Penn had not fulfilled its responsibilities, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Police disbanded the encampment just one day later, arresting 33 participants, including nine students. A Shapiro spokesperson said that Penn’s administration “made the right decision” to sweep the encampment.

In an interview with The New York Times, Shapiro said he did not believe that all encampments or demonstrators were antisemitic, but he had concerns that on some campuses, antisemitic speech was treated differently compared to other forms of hate speech.