“I might be the first speaker at a National Leadership Seminar not to go to college,” Charlie Kirk joked during a speech at Hillsdale College in February 2025.
Then he added: “I’m on pace to complete every single Hillsdale online course, so I think I’m making up for it.”
“So you’re going to fix the world, and you don’t know much about it,” Arnn told him. Instead of taking offense, Kirk got to work.
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Unconventional path
Kirk’s route to national prominence was as unconventional as his education. Raised in the Chicago suburbs, he briefly attended Harper College before leaving to pursue political activism full-time. At 18, he founded Turning Point USA, which grew from a fledgling campus organization into a national conservative youth movement. Over the next 13 years,
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