A 1964 black-and-white photo conveys more information than the majority of political biographies. Standing in his uniform from the New York Military Academy, Donald Trump has twelve medals on his chest that he borrowed for the photo. Most of them, he hadn’t earned. Nevertheless, he borrowed them, put them on, and looked directly into the camera. Even though it’s tiny and often ignored, that picture manages to convey a person’s entire personality.
The Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, Queens, was the unremarkable starting point of Donald Trump’s education. Detentions there reportedly became known as “Donny Trumps,” a sign of either a severely misbehaving child or a child who understood, even at that age, the value of having his name attached to something. He was lively, disruptive, and impossible to ignore. His grades declined. His natural athletic instincts flourished. By the seventh grade, he was sneaking into Manhattan with a friend to purchase switchblades, and he was surreptitiously bringing a transistor radio into class to watch baseball games. Fred Trump senior only became aware of this habit after discovering the knife cache.
Fred responded quickly and thoughtfully. He sent his son to the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson, which was based on physical training, discipline, and the kind of authority that was occasionally applied with physical force. In September 1959, Trump arrived. He acknowledged that the guiding principle was survival. Despite never placing in the top ten percent of his class, he made the honor roll four times out of five years, which required an average of 85. He was relieved of his company captaincy after a sergeant under his command shoved a fellow cadet. He also played baseball and led a drill team for the Fifth Avenue Columbus Day Parade. There was conflict even with his authority.
With a B average and a collection of borrowed medals, he graduated in May 1964. Then came Fordham University in the Bronx, where he commuted from Jamaica Estates, skipped class on warm days to play golf, and relied on a study partner’s verbal summaries of his economics coursework instead of taking any notes. That might have been ideal for him. Instead of reading texts, he has always learned by listening, negotiating, and taking in rooms.
Merit was not the only factor in the transfer to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Freddy, his brother, got in touch with a friend at Penn’s admissions office. The school wasn’t very selective at the time. According to an alumnus of NYMA, Trump relocated there in search of “better contacts for the future.” Just that one sentence reveals something about his view of education: it was infrastructure for ambition rather than intellectual development.
He didn’t participate in any sports, join any clubs, or even get a picture for his senior yearbook while attending Wharton. Later on, he asserted that he was the top graduate in his class of 333. The honor roll did not include him. Later, his attorney gave the College Board and his schools instructions to never publish his SAT scores or grades. That silence reveals a man who wore borrowed medals, boasted about baseball scouting that never happened, and created an identity based on anticipated success before real success materialized.
He received his Bachelor of Science in Economics in May 1968. The diploma was authentic. So was the diagnosis of a bone spur that soon followed, which prevented him from serving in Vietnam. For Trump, life has always seemed to come together at the right times.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that practically every aspect of his education, including the contacts he made, the discipline he was subjected to, and the credentials he polished, all pointed toward the boardroom his father had already set up for him. To be honest, it’s still unclear whether Wharton made Trump or Trump made Wharton. However, the true clue was always the borrowed medals.
