Sarah Thomason received a B.A. in German from Stanford University in 1961. While studying this B.A., she had the opportunity to study a course in linguistics. This course would eventually lead her to do her application for graduation work in linguistics, when she was nominated for the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation program. She would later turn down this fellowship. Thomason decided to dedicate herself to linguistics and, after spending a year in Germany mastering the language, she was re-awarded the Fellowship and was admitted into Yale University, where she completed both an M.A. in 1965 and a Ph.D. in 1968 in linguistics.