Barack Obama in Occidental’s Clapp Library sometime between 1979 and 1981. (PHOTO: THOMAS GRUMMAN)

Barack Obama in Occidental’s Clapp Library sometime between 1979 and 1981. (PHOTO: THOMAS GRUMMAN)

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Occidental College in Los Angeles to Create $40 Million Endowment for Barack Obama Scholars Program

It has long been one of the lesser-known facts about the life of Barack Obama. For all the talk about the former president and his Ivy alma maters — Columbia University and Harvard Law School — he actually spent the first two years of his higher education life, from 1979 to 1981, attending Occidental College in Los Angeles.