Everyone loved that Emma Watson, cute British pixie, had decided to hole herself up in Providence and spend a few years at Brown. But now the Harry Potter actress and blossoming starlet has announced on her website that she's taking some time off from school to focus on promoting the final Harry Potter movie and to work on other film projects.

From her site:

Hi everyone

As you know, I love Brown and I love studying pretty much more than anything but recently I've had so much to juggle that being a student AND fulfilling my other commitments has become a little impossible.

I've decided to take a bit of time off to completely finish my work on Harry Potter (the last one comes out this summer) and to focus on my other professional and acting projects. I will still be working towards my degree... it's just going to take me a semester or two longer than I thought : )

Hope you are all well! Thank you for all your continuing support.

Emma xx

So, OK, sure. She could always go back! People do it. Though for every Natalie Portman, a star who actually earned her degree, there's a Jessica Biel at Tufts, an Olsen twins at NYU, a Claire Danes at Yale, a Joseph Gordon-Levitt at Columbia — all of whom dropped out to continue the work of doing famous-making things and never returned to school. Which is fine. Either way! Everyone's free to do their own thing! It's just a shame that more of these kids can't take four measly years to have a normal-ish existence, out of the public eye, until reentering Glitz World and never looking back. I mean, they could always work in the summer! Ah well. At least there's always James Franco, who's probably earning enough degrees on his own to make up for all the other young celebrities combined.

[Photo via Getty]