Returning to the United States in 1929, Ron resumed his formal education and enrolled in George Washington University the following year. There, he studied mathematics, engineering and attended the first American class on atomic and molecular phenomena. Although not necessarily subjects of choice, such were the disciplines that provided him the investigatory tools with which to pursue outstanding questions of the human mind and life. Indeed, L. Ron Hubbard became the first to bring a scientific methodology to age-old questions of existence.

To round out his university days, he also became one of the foremost pioneers of American aviation, and a barnstorming sensation across the Midwest. Ultimately, however, and particularly in light of what passed for a "science of the mind" in university psychology labs, he could only conclude that western academia held no answers.