The most educated of the 2025 Grammy nominees and where they studied

The Grammy nominees 2025 just dropped, and the girls are winning — with no surprise why.

Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso” poured all over the radio stations, “Good Luck Babe!” was Chappell Roan’s catapult into the mainstream world, and Beyoncé — though she needs no award to prove her prowess — is now the most nominated artist ever with 99 nods. Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Charli XCX’s iconic “Brat” takeover; the Grammy’s will be a night to behold for women.

But let’s not forget the artists who aren’t classified as pop.

The Texas-born trio Khruangbin, nominated in the best new artist category with a genre that’s undefined, toeing the line of psychedelic, funk, and simply hypnotic.

The songwriters behind each pop hit, the visionaries of classical music, and the bold bars of hip-hop.

Beloved rapper André 3000 floated into the album of the year category as a surprise nominee with “New Blue Sun,” where he decided to switch his sound up with a flute.

But we’re not here to talk solely about art. 

When sifting through the long list of Grammy nominees, there’s a relatively common pattern when it comes to these artists’s educational background.

Many have gone to college, but even more of them haven’t. Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter — none of them attended college. Others began their degree but dropped out once they found a rhythm in music.

It raises the question: passion or education?

St. Vincent’s music is impossible to define, and that’s the beauty of it. Source: AFP

The dropout-to-stardom pipeline

You may know Anne Clark as St. Vincent, the guitar maestro classified as an indie act, though her music’s really an amalgamation of all genres — electronic, post-punk, pop rock, and more.

She’s nominated for four Grammys, and is a Berklee College of Music dropout. 

In an interview with Westword, she said: “There has to be some system of grading and measurement. The things they can teach you are quantifiable.”

If you’re a self-proclaimed indie connoisseur who doesn’t know St. Vincent, you’re not an indie connoisseur. It’s hard not to have heard of her crazy guitar prowess and standout albums like “Masseduction” — and she didn’t need a degree to get there.

“I think a lot of people, if they’re not careful, can err on the side of the quantifiable and approach it like an athlete,” she says in the same interview. “But the truth is that a lot of times it’s not necessarily about merely being the best athlete, it’s about attempting a new sport.”

And she’s one of thousands of artists who decided not to stay in university.

Lime green was the staple colour throughout the summer, the doing of Charli XCX. “Brat” was the soundtrack of summer. 

It’s a fast-paced, electro-pop and dance album rooted in emotional depth behind the feisty beats. The success of “Brat” has courted Charli XCX seven Grammy nominations, a well-deserved recognition after six studio albums, and over 15 years in the industry.

Charli XCX has been a songwriter since the age of 16, flying back and forth to Los Angeles for gigs. She penned Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and took to the soundtrack of the film “The Fault In Our Stars” with her synth-pop single “Boom Clap.”

And respectfully, you’d be living under a rock if you hadn’t heard of those two tracks.

At 18, she began a fine arts degree at the University College London’s Slade School of Fine Art. But in her second year, that phase of her life would end.

“I then had a total breakdown,” she told The Telegraph. “I realised I didn’t know anything about art, and I wasn’t good at arguing — and that’s all you really need for art school.”

There was already an art she loved and knew to its core: music.

If you ask a bunch of Grammy nominees if you need a university degree to kick off a career in music, chances are, they’re going to say no.

And honestly, it’s true. Music isn’t a black and white career path, where the steps to success are mapped out, like nursing or accounting. 

Many of these artists already knew exactly what they wanted to do, the skills to drive them through, and the connections in their docket. They were willing to hustle through the whirlwinds of an unstable career to make their passions work — and it did.

But there are perks to going to a music school or conservatory or getting a college degree in an unrelated field.

It’s a place where you can find community, meet experts who are already in the industry, and gain a baseline of survival skills for the real world. It’s a place to build lifelong friendships, and you’ll graduate with a degree to fall back on if you stumble.

The point is: a degree isn’t for everyone, but neither is the lack of it.

It’s up to you to decide who you are, where you are in your career, and what the appropriate next step is.

Grammy nominees 2025 who have a university degree

John Legend, who holds a Bachelor’s in English with a concentration in African-American Literature from the University of Pennsylvania, has been nominated for Best Children’s Music Album at the 2025 Grammy Awards. Source: AFP

Amy Allen

A singer-songwriter. A record producer. A chameleon — Amy Allen’s ability to adapt her songwriting to any genre and any voice has carried her through some of the biggest names in pop music today.

This includes Harry Styles, King Princess, and Sabrina Carpenter. Allen was also a co-writer behind two summer anthems, “Please Please Please” and “Espresso.”

Allen’s originally from Maine, though she started attending Boston College before graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she was taught by songwriter and former American Idol judge Kara Dioguardi.

She’s got four Grammy nominations this year, after winning album of the year as a writer on “Harry’s House” in 2023.

Childish Gambino

This year marks the end of a legendary era for Donald Glover as Childish Gambino — the rapper’s alter ego he held for over a decade. Though he told The New York Times that it’s no longer a fulfilling identity, it’s impossible to dismiss everything he’s achieved.

Glover’s an Emmy award-winner, a Grammy award-winner, and an outspoken artist who makes bold music like “This is America.”

He graduated in 2006 with a degree in dramatic writing from the New York University Tisch School of Arts, where he founded a comedy group. He’s walked milestone after milestone, winning five times amongst Grammy nominees and, this year, nominated for two.

Lake Street Dive has received their first Grammy nomination in 20 years since their debut. Source: AFP

Lake Street Dive

First-time Grammy nominees Lake Street Dive have been shape-shifting through the pop scene since 2004 with their cross-genre experimentation.

Just like Coldplay, Vampire Weekend, and Queen, Lake Street Dive was formed while the founding members were mere university students. They’ve done every genre you can think of, and it’s impossible to define their identity, making them all the more special.

Bridget Kearney, Mike “McDuck” Olson, Rachael Price, and Michael Calabrese attended the New England Conservatory in Boston. Akie Bermiss would join them as a keyboardist in 2017, followed by James Cornelison as a guitarist in 2021 after Olson’s departure.

Justice

This French duo takes you through a unique electronic music journey, incorporating heavy metal into a distorted beat that urges your body to move. Justice is nominated for two Grammy awards this year for their studio album, “Hyperdrama,” and their song, “Neverender,” featuring Tame Impala. 

As of 2025, Justice has seven nominations and two wins in their pocket. It’s only right that they’ve garnered acclaim — their song “D.A.N.C.E.” gave birth to the EDM wave, though today, Gaspard Auge defines them more as disco. 

Members Auge and Xavier de Rosney were actually graphic designers before they were musicians. Auge had already graduated when he met de Rosnay, who was specialising in typography at the École Estienne in Paris.

Lalah Hathaway

Lalah Hathaway has a voice for the ages and stands as one of the best, long-lasting talents in R&B music.

She sprung through the Billboard charts in the 90s with her self-titled debut album and has since worn many artist caps — R&B, jazz, pop, blues, and as a pianist. Throughout her career, she’s earned 12 Grammy nominations and won five.

Hathaway recorded her debut album as a student at the Berklee College of Music, which she graduated from in 1990.

Her contralto voice — the lowest female vocal range and a rarity in music — sings with emotion through the stories she tells. For her impact and talent in music, her alma mater awarded her an honorary doctorate in 2022.