 At the age of 14 , in 1825 , Benjamin entered Yale College , an institution popular among white Southerners ; Vice President John C. Calhoun , a South Carolinian , was among its alumni . Although Benjamin was successful as a student at Yale , he left abruptly in 1827 without completing his course of study . The reasons for this are uncertain : in 1861 , when Louisiana left the Union and Benjamin resigned as a U.S. senator , an abolitionist newspaper alleged that he had been caught as a thief at Yale . He considered bringing suit for libel but litigation was impractical . In 1901 , his sole surviving classmate wrote that Benjamin had been expelled for gambling . One of his biographers , Robert Meade , considered the evidence of wrongdoing by Benjamin to be " too strong to be ignored " , but noted that at the time Benjamin left Yale , he was only 16 years old . 
