Where Did Theo Von Go to College?
Credit: FilmMagic / Getty Images- Theo Von is a stand-up comedian and media personality who hosts the popular podcast “This Past Weekend.”
- Von says he attended seven colleges and universities before earning his bachelor’s degree in urban planning from the University of New Orleans in 2011.
- He said he accumulated over 300 credit hours before graduating and would retake classes he did well in at different institutions.
You may have never heard of Theodor Capitani von Kurnatowski III, but if you’re active online, you’re probably familiar with Theo Von.
Von, 45, is a comedian known for his Louisiana accent and stream-of-consciousness stand-up routines. His podcast, “This Past Weekend,” ranked as Spotify’s third most popular podcast in the U.S. in 2024, and he commands an audience of close to 4 million on YouTube and 7.5 million each on TikTok and Instagram.
Von is known for touching on controversial topics. Last year, he interviewed Donald Trump leading up to the 2024 election, skyrocketing the podcaster’s reach. Among other contentious subjects, Trump asked Von about his illicit drug use.
Von has also spoken about his unconventional path through higher education.
“I kept jumping around to different colleges because I wanted to travel,” Von said in a podcast episode. “… I ended up at seven different universities, and I traveled, and it was fun.”
From LSU to MTV to Semester at Sea
Von was legally emancipated from his parents at 14, saying on his podcast that he “didn’t like his environment.” He graduated from Mandeville High School in Louisiana in the late ’90s before enrolling in college.
Von’s exact timeline in higher education is not known. He has been linked to multiple universities, including Louisiana State University (LSU), where he studied mass communication and wrote for the student newspaper The Reveille.
In 2000, Von, then a 19-year-old LSU student, appeared on the MTV reality show “Road Rules.” In an interview, he said he was recruited for an audition while on campus.
“That was something that just sort of happened when I was walking across campus one day,” he told Louisiana Life magazine in 2014. “It was just kind of a crazy thing that happened.”
In the same interview, Von said that the show’s producers suggested he participate in Semester at Sea. He joined the fall 2002 voyage and worked in the bookshop on the ship.
Von credits the experience with giving him his first taste of stand-up.
“[Semester at Sea is] basically a campus on a ship that goes around the world. They had an open mic night, and I got up and started telling jokes. People laughed. That was it. I got the bug, and I moved to Los Angeles for more opportunities,” Von said in a 2012 interview with “My Spilt Milk,” a New Orleans music and culture website.
Von appeared on several reality TV shows during college, including MTV’s “Road Rules: Maximum Velocity Tour” and four seasons of “The Challenge.” In 2006, he was a semi-finalist in “Last Comic Standing,” and in 2008, he won the comedy competition show “Reality Bites Back.”
Bouncing Between Institutions
Von says he attended seven colleges and universities before graduating, including LSU and Semester at Sea. In 2002, he attended Loyola University of New Orleans. He has also been linked to the University of Arizona and Santa Monica College.
BestColleges reached out to the University of Arizona and Santa Monica College to confirm Von’s enrollment and the years he attended but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
Von said in a podcast he went to the College of Charleston for a semester, but a representative for the school was “unable to confirm” his attendance.
Von eventually earned a bachelor’s degree in urban planning from the University of New Orleans (UNO) in 2011.
“Urban planning dude, where are you going to put that mailbox, son?” Von said in a podcast.
In an interview with NOLA.com, Von said he hung up his degree in his Los Angeles home.
“It’s a little piece of home hanging on my wall,” he said.
In 2015, UNO honored Von as a distinguished alumnus of Interdisciplinary Studies. However, the university does not include Von on a list of past distinguished alumni honorees.
Von said he accumulated over 300 credit hours before earning his diploma by taking duplicate courses at different institutions.
“I took some of the same classes four, five times because I didn’t know that … you couldn’t do it,” Von said on his podcast. “I didn’t fail them. Any class I did good in, I would just take it again at the next school.”
He added: “So I got to the counselor finally, and he’s like, ‘Dude, you got 60 hours of speech and reasoning level 101,’ and I’m like, ‘F*** yeah,’ and he’s like, ‘F*** no.'”