Tara Westover Net Worth 2024. Her Bio, Family & Husband.

Tara Westover is an American author and teacher. Her memoir, “Educated,” tells the story of her incredible journey from a strict, isolated childhood in rural Idaho to earning a Ph.D. at Cambridge University. Born in 1986 to a Mormon survivalist family, she had very little formal education and little access to modern medicine.

Despite this, she was determined to learn. She taught herself, got into Brigham Young University, and eventually attended Cambridge on a special scholarship. Her book focuses on resilience, personal growth, and the power of education. Since it was published, “Educated” has won many awards and inspired readers around the world, making Westover an important voice in modern literature.

Biography

Category	Details
Name	Tara Westover
Born	September 27, 1986
Birthplace	Clifton, Idaho, USA
Education	Ph.D. in Intellectual History from Cambridge
Notable Work	Educated: A Memoir
Net Worth	$2 – $4 million
Major Awards	John Leonard Prize, LA Times Book Prize
Current Residence	London, UK
Themes	Education, Resilience, Personal Growth
Influence	Featured in Time’s 100 Most Influential People (2019)

EARLY LIFE

Tara Westover was born on September 27, 1986, as the youngest of seven children in a conservative survivalist family in Clifton, Idaho. Her parents are Mormons who distrusted government, public schools, and modern medicine. Tara’s mother was a herbalist and midwife who provided homemade herbal remedies for any health issue. Her father believed in self-sufficiency and separated the family from mainstream society.

Tara’s childhood was somewhat other than usual. She was born at home, didn’t receive a birth certificate until nine, and received little formal schooling. Much of her education stemmed from an older brother who taught her to read, sparking within her a passion for learning. But she learned almost exclusively from religious texts—material that would rarely make it into a school curriculum.

Educational Journey

Tara Westover was a teenager yearning to see the world beyond her family’s house in the mountains. However, her father never supported her educational wish, but she trained herself to take the ACT, hoping to get admitted to Brigham Young University, or BYU.

Tara received admission, but her very first year was not very easy. Since she had never attended any institution, the process and procedures of going to college were a little rough for her to get accustomed to.

She worked hard for some years and graduated in 2008 with honors at Brigham Young University. She then carried out further studies at Cambridge University by taking a scholarship with help from Gates Cambridge, the UK.

She earned her master’s degree and went on to spend a short time as a visiting fellow at Harvard University. She then returned to Cambridge to work on her Ph.D. in intellectual history, which she finished in 2014. Her areas of research included 19th-century Anglo-American cooperative thought, such as family and morality in social science.

Net Worth

Tara Westover’s net worth ranges between $2 and $4 million. She earned most of it from her best-selling memoir, “Educated”, which sold more than 8 million copies since 2018. The books also fetched her many more speaking opportunities at universities and conferences. She has received multiple prestigious awards, including a National Humanities Medal and being a resident at Harvard, further propelling her career forward.

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Family

Tara was born to Mormon survivalist parents in Clifton, Idaho. Her parents, Val, and LaRee Westover, homeschooled her and six siblings in a very secluded and different manner. Val had anti-government sentiments that directed their lifestyle. They homeschooled, did not see formal medical care, and relied on herbal remedies and homemade treatments prepared by her mother, LaRee, who practiced herbalism and midwifery.

Family Conflict in Educated

When she was pursuing her postgraduate degree, Westover told her parents the level of physical and psychological attacks by her elder brother on her. This is how this family separation changed permanently, as her parents couldn’t believe her. Her family blamed outside reasons to support her claims. Her life and journey for her identity have been discussed at one point in her book called Educated.

The Success of Educated

In 2018, Penguin Random House published “Educated: A Memoir”. It gained popularity and made it onto The New York Times list of bestseller books within a short time. This book presents Tara Westover’s life story, focusing on her journey to learn, grow, and overcome adversities. The New York Times picked it as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018. It has won many other awards: Book of the Year, American Booksellers Association, Goodreads Choice Award, and Autobiography.

The impact of the book extended beyond books alone. In 2019, Time magazine ranked Westover as one of the 100 most influential people. Many significant personalities, including Barack Obama and Bill Gates, read and popularized the book. By 2020, “Educated” had been translated into 45 languages and sold over 8 million copies. It became one of the most widely read and most celebrated memoirs in years.

Career Highlights

After the huge success of her book “Educated,” Tara Westover has had a number of very important academic positions. She was the A.M. Rosenthal Writer in Residence at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center in the Fall 2019 and a Senior Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School in the Spring of 2020. She also published essays on why education matters and self-discovery is valuable in The New York Times and BBC News.

Besides writing her memoirs, she speaks at public events and writes papers. She believes that education and new discoveries can change lives, especially for those born into families without education.

Awards and Honors

Westover received several awards for her writing, including the John Leonard Prize from the National Book Critics Circle, the LA Times Book Prize in Biography, and a James Joyce Award. She spoke to audiences at Seattle Arts & Lectures and won the New York Historical Society’s Women in Public Life Award.

From Isolation to Inspiration

Tara Westover has her home in London. However, she does not stop telling her story to others worldwide. From this autobiography, people learn that education has an ability to change one’s life, thus offering an answer to most of life’s problems they may meet.

In a matter of just a few years, she changed from a lonely childhood to become a bestselling author and known educational advocate. Her work has sparked the very necessary discussion about family, perseverance, and learning through writing and speaking. Her success is an inspiring example of the journey to the top by sheer hard work.

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