“tenYearMission” and “betterLateThanNever” were among the hashtags that surrounded Spencer Pratt’s graduation selfie, which he shared on Instagram in May 2014 while sporting a cap and gown. The majority of those who saw it chuckled. Somehow, the man who had spent years playing The Hills’ designated villain—rapping under the moniker “Great White,” causing trouble with Lauren Conrad, and leaving a reality show in Costa Rica after being arrested at the airport with hunting weapons—had earned a degree in political science from the University of Southern California. As expected, the majority of the response was incredulity.
That degree is much less of a joke ten years later.
Pratt was raised in Los Angeles and went to Santa Monica’s Crossroads School, a private school known for its innovative programming and rigorous academic standards. In 2003, he enrolled at USC. That same year, he made his television debut in the short-lived reality series The Princes of Malibu, which he produced himself primarily to manage and promote Brody Jenner. He started making appearances on The Hills in 2006, and by 2007, he was one of the most well-known and despised faces on cable television. During that time, his college coursework quietly vanished. He didn’t re-enroll until 2011 after leaving USC to work on television projects, and he eventually finished his degree in December 2013, ten years after enrolling.
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Spencer William Pratt |
| Date of Birth | August 14, 1983 |
| Birthplace | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| High School | Crossroads School, Los Angeles |
| University | University of Southern California (USC) |
| Degree | Bachelor of Arts, Political Science |
| Enrolled | 2003 |
| Graduated | December 2013 (officially May 2014 ceremony) |
| Time to Complete | Approximately 10 years |
| Reason for Delay | Left studies to pursue reality television; re-enrolled 2011 |
| Notable Quote on Graduation | “I was busy being fabulous!” |
| Current Role | Candidate, 2026 Los Angeles Mayoral Election |
In response to a question concerning the timeline, Pratt gave an unapologetic explanation: he was preoccupied with being amazing. It was precisely the type of line that was meant to be quoted, and it was. However, there is something truly noteworthy beneath the self-deprecating bluster: he went back. Most people don’t care if they drop out of college in the middle of their careers, especially if they’ve become as famous as Pratt was at his best. The credential was not going to unlock doors that had already been opened by reality television fame. By all practical standards, completing the USC degree was not necessary. Nevertheless, he did it.
His chosen course, political science, now reads differently than it did when he first enrolled in 2003. It was a fairly conventional decision at the time for a young person from Los Angeles with unclear career goals. The academic background has become a minor talking point in favor of Pratt in 2026, when he is running for mayor of Los Angeles against incumbent Karen Bass in a race that has garnered genuine national attention. It is also possibly the only aspect of his biography that serious political observers can discuss without reservation.
His campaign, which was unveiled on January 7, 2026, the first anniversary of the Pacific Palisades fire that destroyed his house, draws in ways that are hard to distinguish between his USC training and his personal loss. He likened himself to Barack Obama as a community advocate during a KNBC debate in May. He has advocated for specific stances on homelessness, policing, and the city’s interaction with federal authorities. It’s genuinely difficult to tell from the outside whether any of it represents a cogent political philosophy based on his USC coursework or if it’s just a reality TV star’s natural talent for performance disguised as political fluency.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that Spencer Pratt’s career has consistently blurred the distinction between those two things. He was portraying domesticity on Celebrity Big Brother, villainy on The Hills, and mayoral competence in an AI campaign advertisement with a Batman theme that went viral in May 2026. In the middle of all of that is the USC political science degree, which is a legitimate credential obtained over ten real years and linked to a person who has spent twenty years making it extremely difficult to determine where the performance ends.
Before the summer is out, it will likely be known whether Los Angeles voters find that combination compelling or disqualifying. However, the degree is genuine. And in a city that is accustomed to reinventing itself, Spencer Pratt running on a political science degree that he earned at the age of thirty, following ten years as the most popular villain on reality TV, is, at the very least, the kind of narrative that USC’s admissions office most likely did not anticipate.
