 Later in Lay's childhood, his family relocatd to Columbia, Missouri, and Lay attended David H. Hickman High School and the University of Missouri, where he studied economics, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1964 and an Master of Arts in 1965.He served as president of the Zeta Phi chapter of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at the University of Missouri.He earned a Doctor of Philosophy in economics from the University of Houston in 1970.