It's not surprising these days that a lot of celebrities have higher education degrees. What's surprising, however, is that there are some who have pursued and earned a Ph.D. degree. Here are 5 celebrities you might not know has a doctorate degree.

Peter Weller

Peter Weller is best known as the original RoboCop, a role he also reprised in RoboCop 2. He also appeared in critically acclaimed films including Mighty Aphrodite and Naked Lunch. Aside from that, he is also the director of the Netflix series Longmire in 2012.

However, not a lot of people know that Weller has a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance from UCLA making him the perfect choice to be the host of History Channel's Engineering an Empire, which talked about the architectural accomplishments of Rome, Egypt, and China.

Greg Graffin

Who would have thought that a bad-ass rocker from a bad-ass band has a Ph.D.? A lot of people can imagine Greg Graffin belting out 'Punk Rock Song' and other Bad Religion hits but not a lot would have guessed that he wrote a dissertation called, "Evolution, Monism, Atheism, and the Naturalist World-View: Perspectives from Evolutionary Biology," for his Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell University.

If that wasn't cool enough, he is also a lecturer at Cornell and UCLA teaching life sciences and evolution respectively.

James Franco

James Franco might not have officially earned his Ph.D. yet but based on his track record, it won't take long before he accomplishes that. At present, he is taking his Ph.D. in English at Yale University, which is not surprising. There was a point in his life where he took as many as 62 credits per quarter at UCLA. Aside from that, he simultaneously studied filmmaking at New York University and fiction writing at Brooklyn University.

Miuccia Prada

Miuccia Prada is one of the heirs of the well-known luxury brand founded by Mario Prada, her grandfather. Aside from being involved in the family business, Prada is involved in a wide range of interests. One of those was as a mime performer at the Teatro Piccolo where she trained for five years prior to that. And speaking of doctorate degrees, she earned her Ph.D. in political science at the University of Milan.

Ken Jeong

Funnyman Ken Jeong was known for his roles in Knocked Up, Zookeeper, and Pineapple Express. But nor everyone knows that before he became a popular comedian, he was a practicing physician in New Orleans. He got his M.D at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill High School.

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Tags Higher education