After graduating from NYMA in 1964, Trump matriculated at Fordham University in the Bronx, where he spent two years studying economics. Seeking a more prestigious environment, he transferred to the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. While at Wharton, he balanced his academic requirements with his growing ambition to look beyond his father’s outer-borough focus. His time in college coincided with the height of the Vietnam War; by leveraging medical exemptions—specifically citing bone spurs—along with his student status, he successfully deferred military service. During these years, he began his own initial real estate investments, testing the waters in the Philadelphia market and absorbing the high-finance lessons that would propel him into the Manhattan real estate arena shortly after his 1968 graduation.