Joseph Duggar and his new bridge, Kendra, are about to become parents. Such is the way for the Duggars, as any fans know. You grow up, you meet a family-approved partner and do a little family-approved courting full of sidelong glances and side-hugs. You have a massive wedding and a camera crew zooms in close on your very first kiss ever in your life. Then you go on a honeymoon and come back pregnant, if all works out as expected. This is what we know about the Duggars for sure. Their education is less transparent; did Joseph Duggar go to college before he settled down to get married at the ripe old age of 23? Or is that a skippable step in the eyes of the Duggars as they continue Counting On?
It turns out, Joseph actually did enjoy a little time at college before deciding against furthering his higher education. He attended one year of Crown Bible College in Powell, Tennessee. According to the Crown College of the Bible website, "The Crown College of the Bible is a distinctive Baptist college continuing in the heritage of the servants of the Lord. May God continue to use The Crown College of the Bible for His glory “for such a time as this.”
As of January 2016, Joseph was back in Arkansas and working for the family business as a fifth-generation house flipper, according to the Duggar family Facebook page:
Joseph just completed a year at Crown Bible College and is now back working with the Duggar family business doing construction. He now plans to acquire his real estate license and his CDL license.
It is notable that Joseph, who hardly gives the impression of a rebel in the family, was the first member of the Duggar clan to buck the family tradition of homeschooling and head off to college. And a college so far away, at that; a full 10-hour drive from his hometown of Tontitown, Arkansas. Whether or not Joseph received any form of certification is not known, although the Duggar family blog noted that Joseph is planning to get his real estate license and commercial driver's license to be of more use to the family business.
While Joseph might have been the first Duggar child to head off to college, Michelle Duggar wrote in a 2012 blog post for TLC that some of the Duggar kids take online college courses rather than heading off to a bricks and mortar institution:
A few of our kids are taking courses right now, and I think some of them will go for their degrees in whichever areas they decide, and then I think some of them may not really go for the full degree -- but they're getting knowledge and information for skills that they want to gain. All my kids are different, and it will be interesting as time goes on to see which direction each one will take.
These days, of course, Joseph is pretty busy getting accustomed to his new life as a husband to Kendra and soon-to-be father. He and Kendra were married last September, and announced in December that they are expecting their first child, a little boy. As Joseph told People at the time:
I’ve always dreamed of having my own family and it’s really just kind of surreal that it’s actually here. I kind of think it’s going to be a boy, but either way, I’m happy just to have a baby.
Now that he has a family on the way, his year of college must feel like a lifetime ago.
But hey; at least he got to go, right?
