Orszag graduated from the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, and he earned an undergraduate degree in economics from Princeton University in 1991. He received a master's degree (1992) and a Ph.D. (1997) from the London School of Economics, and he worked for the Council of Economic Advisers (1993–94, 1995–96) during the Clinton administration. From 1997 to 1998 he served as a special economic adviser to President Clinton. Orszag entered the private sector in 1998, working as a budget consultant and teaching macroeconomics at the University of California, Berkeley. He was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution (2001–07); while there he researched topics such as retirement planning, tax policy, and higher-education funding. In 2007 Orszag was appointed head of the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency that provides legislators with budget projections and economic forecasts. He left that position in 2008 when President-elect Barack Obama nominated him to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget. Orszag assumed the post in January 2009 after being confirmed by the Senate.