 Yeghiayan's mother, Aroussiag Terzian, had close relations with the Ethiopian royal family – her godmother was Menen Asfaw, the wife of Emperor Haile Selassie – and this relationship had afforded him and his two brothers the privilege to study abroad.At age eleven, he was sent to an American boarding school in Cyprus and in 1954 he arrived to study in the United States.He attended school at Indiana University for one year before being accepted to Berkeley, initially as a premed student, later changing his major and graduating with a Bachelor in history in 1959.