Julia Roberts Shares Regret Over Not Going To College

Julia Roberts may be one of Hollywood’s brightest stars, but she still has some relatable life regrets.

Roberts opened up about the early years of her career in a Jan. 11 Vogue interview with Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis, and shared that going to college “wasn’t in my cards.”

“My family didn’t have the money. And I had no scholarship potential. That kind of thing,” she explained, adding that watching her kids enroll at university made her regret not going through “the college process.”

“Looking for schools and talking about what they are interested in learning more about and all that, it does just fill me with a longing for that academic space,” she continued. “I want to learn about anthropology! Where’s that academic space for someone like me? It doesn’t really exist.”

“I Had Three Choices”

Roberts previously spoke of her decision to not attend university back in 1990 with the New York Times.

“I had convinced myself that I had three choices: I could get married, I could go to college, or I could move to New York,” she explained at the time. “Nobody was asking to get married and I didn't want to go away to school, so I moved.”

Roberts landed her breakout movie role in 1988’s Mystic Pizza following her move to the Big Apple. Two years later, she starred in Pretty Woman opposite Richard Gere, launching her decades-long career in Hollywood.

College Is Now Julia’s “Entire Life”

Roberts’ two eldest sons, twins Hazel and Phinnaeus, left for university in Fall 2022. Speaking to Extra at the time, the actor said it was “really thrilling” to see her kids start their college journey.

“I wasn't lucky enough to have a college experience. And so to see how it's happening for them is really fascinating,” she shared. “I'm just, I'm excited for them.”

More recently, Roberts revealed on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon that overseeing her children’s college education has become her “entire life.”

“I wear the colors, I do the whole thing,” she explained, adding: “I parent them the same way out of the house that I parent them in the house. Which is, ‘Are you getting enough sleep? You sound like you're sick, are you drinking tea?’”