Jaden Smith has quite an extensive acting and music career for someone of his age. Born in 1998, he is still only college-age, but has been in various films and has two studio albums. Since he is so young and successful, many of his fans have been wondering if he went to college or not.
Jaden Smith does not believe in traditional schooling, so he never went to college. As he grew up in the limelight with Will Smith and Jada-Pinkett Smith as his parents, Jaden and his sister Willow were homeschooled. He also does not believe traditional school is beneficial, so he never pursued it.
Continue reading to find out more about Jaden Smith’s history with school and why he doesn’t believe in it.
Jaden Smith’s Upbringing
Jaden and his sister Willow had quite a unique upbringing. Their parents, Will and Jada Smith are quite lax when it comes to rules.
Will and Jada have said that they trust their children to make their own decisions. Further saying, “We respect our children the way we would respect any other person. Things like cleaning up their room. You would never tell a full-grown adult to clean their room, so we don’t tell our kids to clean their rooms.”
Growing up, Jaden and Willow were both homeschooled by their mother. This is quite common for children of celebrities in order to escape the limelight.
The children also attended a private elementary school in 2008 called New Village Leadership Academy. The school was actually owned and founded by Will and Jada.
Schooling at the academy was also non-traditional as Will and Jada wanted to, “revolutionize public education”. They wanted to create a fun learning environment for their students. Unfortunately, the school shut down after only five years as Will and Jada could not get the funding necessary.
After the school shut down, Jaden and Willow went back to homeschooling with their mother. When the two finished homeschooling, they did not pursue post-secondary education.
Jaden Smith feels strongly against traditional schooling. He has tweeted various tweets about how school is holding people in society back and people would be better off if they dropped out.
He tweeted, “School is the tool to brainwash the youth.” And “If everybody in the world dropped out of school. We would have a much more intelligent society.”
Jaden has been quite open about his disdain for traditional schooling because he believes in learning from his environment instead.
His sister Willow seems to feel the same as she only went to school for a year. She says it made her depressed, so she dropped out.
Jaden Smith’s Other Pursuits
Instead of learning from going to college, Jaden has been learning in different ways and pursuing other avenues.
Notably, Jaden has been focusing on his music career. He started his music career quite young, featuring on the song “Never Say Never” with Justin Bieber when he was only 11.
He went on to release two mixtapes in 2012 and 2014 respectively, titled The Cool Café and CTV2. He has also released two studio albums in 2016 and 2019, titled Syre and Erys.
Jaden seems to be learning through music and his musical inspirations instead of college. He has said that he is inspired by artists like Kanye West and Kid Cudi, both men he is now friends with and has worked with.
He has also gone on tour with many big musicians like Tyler the Creator, Post Malone, and Fall Out Boy. Jaden says on each tour, he learned a lot to improve his own music.
He further says that listening to older music helps educate him and helps him to improve as an artist.
So, although Jaden Smith is not pursuing a traditional post-secondary route, he is still trying to learn and grow in his own way.