Question for Bronze Age Dick Grayson fans

[rando1000]

I've been a huge fan of Dick Grayson since I started reading comics in 1985, and was surprised to find the cartoon Robin I knew from Superfriends was now Nightwing. I read all the New Titans/Tales back issues, most of the original run of Teen Titans, and have read several of the Hudson University and Batgirl teamup stories. One thing I don't get. Everyone says Robin "failed out of Hudson University" in Detective 495. Indeed, we see him leaving Hudson for Gotham at the end of that issue, with a make-up paper hanging over his head for his Business class, and his girlfriend Jennifer very kindly waiting back at his place with books from the library. But nowhere in that book is it any more than implied that he is heading for Gotham to stop a drug ring.

The next we see him is (I believe) Batman 329, cover dated one month following Tec 495. No mention of events in 495. Then we're at New Teen Titans 1 (just after Batman 329), where Wally West seems to know Dick has left college, but when was the reader actually told? Last we knew (a month ago) is he was failing one class and going to Gotham to stop some drug dealers.

[Jim Kelly]

I don't know, I could have sworn he continued his studies at a Gotham college. I figured they just moved him from Hudson to Gotham for the purposes of having him close to Batman. I don't remember him ever actually graduating, but neither do I remember him officially dropping out. They just didn't deal with that and other plots took over.

[Aahz]

I think this was made clear in the later issues of Batman and TEC. He iirc still regularly appeared there untill Jason was introduced.

[Aahz]

To me it looks like it was first confirmed in Barman #330.

Batman #330.jpg

[Pohzee]

It's been a minute since I read it, my understanding of Detective #495 was that in that story Dick had said that his grades were struggling due to his extracurricular superheroics. The paper that he needs to write in the story essentially is what him passing his class hinges on, and he deliberates between hunkering down to study and helping others. At the end of the story he leaves for Gotham, indicating that he has chosen crime-fighting over academics and leaving behind the paper his grade depended on.

Its a symbolic decision and far less spelled out than most things were in comics at the time. The fact that he had dropped out wasn't entirely clear to me either until it was confirmed in subsequent issues.

[rando1000]

To me it looks like it was first confirmed in Barman #330.

Ah, sweet. One issue past where I was reading in that arc. So he dropped out sometime after Detective 425 (cover data Oct 1980) and NTT 1 (cover date Nov 1980; Wally West brings it up) and it's confirmed here by Dick (cover date Dec 1980). Thanks very much.

[Jim Kelly]

I guess to me that didn't seem definitive at the time. My university education (at around this same period) was spread out over four different institutions and it took me ten years to finally get my B.A. It's not like there's anyone holding a gun to your head and saying if you don't complete your degree this year, you will be prevented from completing it ever again in your lifetime. Dick could have easily got his degree through correspondence--especially as he came from one of the wealthiest homes in the world.