In 1930, Frankena received a B.A. with majors in English and philosophy from Calvin College, a liberal arts college of the Christian Reformed Church. At Calvin, Frankena studied with William Harry Jellema (1893–1982). Frankena then earned an M.A. from the University of Michigan (1931), where the Department of Philosophy included C. Harold Langford (1895–1964), Dewitt H. Parker (1885–1949), and Roy Wood Sellars (1880–1973). Next Frankena earned a second M.A. and a Ph.D. (1937) at Harvard University. He studied with C. I. Lewis, Ralph Barton Perry, and Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard, and with G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad at the University of Cambridge in England while he did Ph.D. research. His doctoral dissertation, which focused on Moore's work, was entitled "Recent Intuitionism in British Ethics." Frankena became well known in the profession with his first published paper, "The Naturalistic Fallacy", "Mind", 1939. During World War II, Frankena taught American history at the University of Michigan.