Jamie Beaton has 12 advanced degrees from Harvard, Yale, Oxford and other top universities, with more on the way. Early in the fall semester of the 2025-26 academic year, Lisa Belkin, an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s journalism school, realized that one of her students, Jamie Beaton, had yet to show up for class. Belkin, who avoids combing the internet for information about her students, knew nothing about Beaton.

She was curious about his absence, though, so she reached out to a dean, who sent an email. Beaton was apologetic in his reply, saying he had mixed up his schedule. He was in New Zealand, teaching a course in entrepreneurship at the University of Auckland, but would be back in New York the next week.

That was when Belkin decided to break her rule. Who was this guy? Beaton, she learned, had graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 2016, picking up a master’s degree in applied mathematics along the way. He had gone on to collect an M.

B. A. from Stanford. Then a law degree from Yale.

That was followed by a doctor of philosophy in public policy from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes scholar — all before age 28. Attending classes remotely and in person, he earned additional master’s degrees from — deep breath — the University of Pennsylvania (education entrepreneurship), Stanford (education technology), Princeton (finance), Cornell (health care policy and economics), Dartmouth (implementation science), King’s College London (war studies) and Tsinghua University in Beijing (global affairs). Still, there was more: Beaton, who was born and raised in New Zealand, was a founder and the chief executive of Crimson Education, a college admissions counseling service that has been valued at more than $600 million.

A week after his apologetic reply, Beaton made his first appearance in Belkin’s classroom. As the semester went on, he did not miss an assignment. He was a joy to get to know, Belkin said.

But it was also the weirdest relationship I’ve ever had with a student.