Granholm attended Ida Price Junior High and Del Mar High School before graduating from San Carlos High School in 1977[11] and won the Miss San Carlos beauty pageant.[12] As a young adult, she attempted to launch a Hollywood acting career but abandoned her efforts at age 21.[11] In 1978, she appeared on The Dating Game,[13] and held jobs as a tour guide at Universal Studios and in customer service at the Los Angeles Times and was the first female tour guide at Marine World Africa USA in Redwood City, piloting boats with 25 tourists aboard.[12]

In 1980, at age 21, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen,[14] and worked for John B. Anderson's campaign for president of the United States as an Independent in the 1980 election. She then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, the first person in her family to attend college.[7] She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in political science and French.[7] During a year in France, she helped to smuggle clothes and medical supplies to Jewish people in the Soviet Union[7] and became involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.[7] She then earned a Juris Doctor degree at Harvard University, also with honors, in 1987.[7] At Harvard Law School, Granholm served as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the leading progressive law journal in the United States.