He attended Brooklyn Preparatory, a Jesuit school, on a scholarship and graduated as class valedictorian in 1946. He later attended Georgetown University on a scholarship, where he earned his bachelor's degree in English in 1950. "Those years at Georgetown were probably the best years of my life," Blatty said in 2015. "Until then, I’d never had a home." While studying for his master's degree at George Washington University, Blatty took menial jobs. Initially unable to find a job in teaching, he worked as a vacuum-cleaner door-to-door salesman, a beer-truck driver, and as a United Airlines ticket agent. He earned his master's in English literature from the George Washington University in 1954. He then enlisted in the United States Air Force.