Here's How Far CNN's Kaitlan Collins Really Got In School

CNN chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins has built quite the impressive career for herself since joining the network in 2017. In that time, Collins has not only undergone a glamorous transformation and gotten under the Trump administration's skin on more than a few occasions, but has also reportedly made a sizeable chunk of change in the process. That being said, a successful career often starts with a good education, which begs the question: Just how far did Kaitlan Collins really get in school?

Collins has a rather standard, but still undeniably solid, educational background. A native of Alabama, she got her start the same as most, though confessed during an appearance on "The Axe Files with David Axelrod" in 2023 that her talkative nature got her in a bit of trouble during her early schooling days. At the podcast episode's five-minute mark, Collins addressed her childhood nickname of "The Mouth of the South." "That's what my mom used to say I was when I was in the third grade because I always got in trouble in class for talking," she said, adding, "'Cause I'd just talk a lot. I mean, clearly it has benefited me in this role. But maybe I need to — I get told to wrap a few times when I'm doing my dispatches from the White House."

Collins went on to attend Prattville High School in her hometown of Prattville, Alabama before subsequently graduating with a degree in political science and journalism from the University of Alabama, per InStyle. Makes sense, right? But what you may not know about Collins is that she initially started down a very different career path while in college.

It's not particularly uncommon for college students to change their minds regarding what they want to study. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, roughly 30% of undergrads change their declared major at least once during their first three years at school, while 10% change it at least twice. As Collins explained during her aforementioned appearance on "The Axe Files with David Axelrod" in 2023, she initially enrolled in the University of Alabama with the intention of earning a chemistry degree. Before too long, however, she started to realize that the life of a scientist was not for her.

"My older sister, who is one of my best friends, she went to Auburn, actually. That was the bigger controversy, was she went to the east side of the state to Auburn and I went to the west side to Tuscaloosa. ... But yeah, my sister is a brilliant scientist, she's a chemist now, she works in a drug development company," Collins said, adding, "And for some reason, I thought that I, too, would be a chemist, and reality hit me like a pile of bricks." Collins revealed that she very nearly failed her second semester as a chemistry student, and only passed on account of the 2011 Tuscaloosa-Birmingham tornado, which prompted the university to cancel final exams.

Knowing full well that she couldn't count on that sort of thing happening again, let alone several more times, she decided to scour the university's course catalog to find a new major, and that's when journalism jumped out at her. Given where she is now, this course correction seems to have worked out.