[4] With the family moves and the need for help on the farm through world war one John's education suffered many interruptions, however, he did well in his studies.
From 1923-1925 he taught in Punnichy, Saskatchewan to raise funds for university, completing some undergraduate credits extramurally.
[7] At the University of Manitoba Robbins set his sights on a master's degree, completed his bachelor of arts in 1928.
In 1929 he completed the master's degree, majoring in economics and minor in political science and a thesis titled, "A study of the revenue system of the Dominion of Canada."
[8] In 1930, after publishing several successful papers, he received an offer of a position in the Educational Division of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1941 while employed at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics Robbins, a proponent of a creating a non-Catholic college in Ottawa, has a role in founding Carleton University first as a board member on the College Grade Education Committee and later on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors.
Evans, president of Brandon College, died and a former classmate of Robbins was the Vice-Chairman of the board, Milt Holden.
Mitchell Sharp, then the Secretary of State for External Affairs, felt that naming Robbins (a self-described humanist and admirer of the Unitarian church) would do well to blunt criticism from Protestant Canadians, many of whom opposed establishing diplomatic relations with the Holy See, at all.
[16] His son, Emmett, interrupted his career teaching classics at the University of Toronto to act as his father's secretary at the embassy in Rome.