Powell was a pupil at King's Norton Grammar School for Boys before moving to King Edward's School, Birmingham, where he studied classics, and was one of the few pupils in the school's history to attain 100 per cent in an end-of-year English examination. He studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1930 to 1933, during which time he fell under the influence of the poet A. E. Housman, then Professor of Latin at the university. He also began to study German as many prominent classics scholars were German. He took no part in politics at university.