Ford's first degree, Bachelor of Pedagogy, was from a normal school in Missouri. He then attended the University of Missouri in Columbia, graduating with a B.A. in 1911. For graduate work he went to Harvard University in 1912 and 13. Ford was then called to Scotland, where in 1914 he was instructor of mathematics at University of Edinburgh. Games of chess on campus gave Ford some social contact and reputation. In 1915 Ford published An Introduction to the Theory of Automorphic Functions as Edinburgh Mathematical Tract # 6.
Returning to Harvard in 1917, Ford was awarded his Ph.D. for the thesis Rational Approximations to an Irrational Complex Number, under the supervision of Maxime Bôcher.[2]
Later Ford joined the faculty of Rice Institute in Houston, Texas. There he married Marguerite Eleanor John on 15 June 1924.