There’s a common trope of escapism in all genres of music, but especially rock and roll, that if school isn’t clicking, you can always drop out and try to make it as a rock star. And that’s exactly what many famous musicians including Elton John, David Bowie, and Ozzy Osbourne did.

Others, however, excelled both on stage and in the classroom. These musicians weren’t just good students in high school; a handful of rockers went on to attend Ivy League schools or earn PhDs.

To celebrate some of the rock world’s brainiest stars, we compiled a list of 10 rock stars with impressive college degrees.

In addition to being Queen’s lead guitarist, Brian May has his PhD in astrophysics.

In addition to writing 22 of Queen’s songs including the megahit “We Will Rock You,” Brian May is an astrophysicist.

Back when Queen formed in 1970, May was in the process of finishing his PhD at Imperial College London. He told Time in 2019 that he had to choose between finishing his doctoral thesis and trying to make it big as a rock star.

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“And my choice was made on the assumption that I wasn’t very good at physics and I might be quite good at music,” he said.

After putting it off for decades, May finally returned to college in 2007 and finished his thesis. “I put everything, and I mean everything, on hold for a year. And they put me in a little office in Imperial College and I got down to it,” he told Time.

Though May has spent most of his life touring the globe with Queen, in 2015 he began working with NASA’s New Horizons team as they looked at the first high-quality stereo images of Pluto.

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.

Read more: yahoo