What is Joe Biden’s IQ?
He really did boast about his IQ in 1987. The number itself was never real — then or now.
In 1987, Joe Biden really did tell a New Hampshire voter he probably had a higher IQ than him — and, in the same breath, gave several inflated details about his own record that turned out to be false. No number from that exchange, or from a fabricated 2024 announcement, has ever been real.
Joe Biden’s estimated IQ
- Graduated the University of Delaware in 1965 ranked 506th of 688, with a documented “C” average, majoring in history and political science.
- Graduated Syracuse University College of Law in 1968 ranked 76th of a class of 85.
- A 1965 first-year law-school paper was found to have used roughly five uncredited pages from a Fordham Law Review article; he initially failed the course and was allowed to retake it.
- Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972 at 29, one of the youngest senators in American history, and served as Vice President from 2009 to 2017 before becoming the 46th President in 2021.
The academic record here is genuinely below-average by the achievement method’s usual standard, which is the opposite direction from most profiles on this site. A long, successful political career sits alongside it, and the two are not easy to weigh against each other on a single scale.
- Born
- 20 November 1942, Scranton, Pennsylvania
- Field
- Politics, law
- Education
- University of Delaware (BA); Syracuse University (JD)
- Known for
- U.S. Senator (1973–2009); Vice President (2009–2017); 46th President (2021–2025)
What an IQ of 100–115 actually means
Set the claim aside for a moment. If someone genuinely scored in this range, here is what that would represent.
Average is 100 by construction, and about two-thirds of people fall between 85 and 115. Take the test to place your own score on this scale.
| Score range | Classification | Share of people | What it indicates |
|---|---|---|---|
| 85 – 114 | Average | ~68% | The range most people fall into. |
| 115 – 129 | Above average | ~13.6% | Roughly one person in seven. |
| 130 – 144 | Gifted | ~2% | The threshold most high-IQ societies use. |
| Above 144 | Highly gifted | ~0.1% | Figures above this range are extrapolated from the curve rather than measured. |
Percentages are approximate and describe a normal distribution. The same number means different things on tests with different standard deviations.
Thirty questions gives you a measured position on this exact scale — your score, your percentile and the ability breakdown behind it.
Find out in 30 minutes →Who Joe Biden is
Joe Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1942 and raised in Delaware. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Delaware in 1965 and a law degree from Syracuse University in 1968.
He was elected to the U.S. Senate from Delaware in 1972 at age 29, one of the youngest senators in American history, and served there for 36 years. He was Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, and was elected the 46th President of the United States in 2020, taking office in January 2021.
His first run for president, in 1987–88, ended after revelations of exaggerated academic claims and a separate speech-plagiarism controversy; he ran again in 2008 and 2020, succeeding on the third attempt.
By Elora Mercer, Celebrity Research WriterFigures checked by Leon Falkner, Data & Research AnalystReviewed by Aarav Vardhan, Editor-in-Chief · Last reviewed August 2026
Joe Biden: the documented record
The estimate above rests on this record. Every entry here is a matter of public fact, which is more than can be said for the number itself.
- 1942Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
- 1965Graduates the University of Delaware, 506th of 688.
- 1968Graduates Syracuse University College of Law, 76th of 85.
- 1972Elected to the U.S. Senate at 29.
- 1987Overstates his academic record to a New Hampshire voter; withdraws from the 1988 race months later.
- 2009Becomes Vice President.
- 2021Becomes the 46th President of the United States.
- 2024A fabricated “IQ 187” claim circulates online, later debunked.
Where the 187 figure came from
Following a claim back to its first appearance is the part almost nobody does — and it is what most people are actually asking.
Unlike John F. Kennedy or the other presidents on this site caught up in the 2001 “Lovenstein Institute” hoax, Biden was not president in 2001 and does not appear on that fabricated list at all. His story here is a different, and in some ways more revealing, kind: a real, self-generated boast that collapsed under its own inflation the moment reporters checked the specifics.
What makes the 1987 exchange notable is not the IQ line itself — a testy, off-the-cuff remark to a heckling voter — but that Biden padded the surrounding claims in the same breath, and none of the padding held up: not the scholarship, not the class rank, not the degree count. The willingness to inflate the details around the boast is more informative than the boast.
The 187 figure attached to him decades later is a separate, unrelated fabrication with no connection to the 1987 incident — worth noting because online summaries of “Biden’s IQ” often conflate the two into a single story that never happened that way.
How we read a number →Including the Washington Examiner’s and PolitiFact’s review of the incident and Biden’s subsequent corrections.
He acknowledged ranking 76th of 85, not in the top half, and holding a half scholarship, not a full one.
Rated False by Snopes; no such announcement was ever made.
No genuine test score for Biden has ever been published.
The sources behind our estimate
The figures that circulate for Joe Biden, what we were able to confirm, and where the two diverge.
In April 1987, when a New Hampshire voter asked what law school Biden attended and where he ranked in his class, Biden responded, “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect,” then claimed a full academic scholarship, a top-half class finish, a moot-court win and “three degrees” — all overstated or false. Separately, a fabricated 2024 social-media post claimed his press secretary had announced an IQ of 187.
The 1987 exchange happened and is on record: Biden had a half, not full, scholarship; ranked 76th of 85 in his law class, not the top half; and held one law degree, not three. He withdrew from the 1988 presidential race months later, amid this episode and a separate plagiarism controversy. The 187 figure is unconnected and fabricated — Snopes traced it to a January 2024 post falsely claiming an official announcement that never happened.
One of these is a real, documented class rank Biden himself later had to concede. The other is a number invented for a fake news story thirty-seven years later. Neither supports a high-IQ claim.
Want a number that does hold up? Every figure on this page is somebody’s claim. Take the 30-question test and get a percentile you can check rather than a figure you have to trust.
Joe Biden — frequently asked
What is Joe Biden’s IQ?
No genuine test score has ever been published. A widely shared “187” figure from 2024 was fabricated and traces to a false social-media claim about an announcement that never happened.
Did Joe Biden really say he had a higher IQ than a voter?
Yes. In April 1987 he told a New Hampshire voter, “I think I probably have a much higher IQ than you do, I suspect,” after being asked about his law-school record.
Was the rest of what he said in 1987 true?
No. In the same exchange he overstated his scholarship, his class rank and the number of degrees he held; he later corrected the record on all three.
Where did Joe Biden actually rank in law school?
76th of 85 at Syracuse University College of Law — not in the top half, as he claimed in 1987.
Is Joe Biden on the “Lovenstein Institute” presidential IQ hoax list?
No. That 2001 hoax ranked presidents up to George W. Bush; Biden was not yet president and does not appear on it.
Was there a law-school plagiarism issue too?
Yes, a separate 1965 first-year paper was found to use uncredited material from a law review article; it surfaced publicly alongside the 1987 IQ exchange.
How does my IQ compare with Joe Biden?
You can find out in about fifteen minutes. The IQ Metrics assessment is 30 questions, scored on the same 100-mean scale used throughout this page, so your result and the estimate above are at least expressed in the same units — one measured, one inferred. Once you have a number, the leaderboard shows where it would sit, and how we score and norm it explains the benchmarking.
Where does this estimate come from?
From the documented record rather than a test — the method is named above and set out in full under how we read a number. Compare it against the other politics profiles, starting with Thomas Jefferson.
- Take the 30-question IQ test — get a measured score and percentile of your own
- Average IQ by country — how the scale behaves across populations
- How IQ Metrics scores its assessment — the method behind our own number
- More on how IQ testing works — reliability, error and what a score can and cannot say
- More politics profiles — same field, same method
More politics
Portrait by Gilbert Stuart (the Williamstown portrait, his copy of the Athenaeum portrait, in the Clark Art Institute), public domain. · Photograph by Velislav Nikolov (EU2018BG), via Wikimedia Commons (Informal Meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council, February 2018), CC BY 2.0. Background removed for the portrait above. · Official U.S. government portrait (Department of Defense / Department of the Navy, 1977), via Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Background removed for the portrait above.
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