Tan was educated at St Patrick's School and St Joseph's Institution. As a recipient of a government scholarship, he graduated with first class honours in physics from the University of Singapore (now the National University of Singapore), topping his class.[5] As an Asia Foundation scholar, he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he completed a Master of Science in operations research. He later earned a Doctor of Philosophy in applied mathematics at the University of Adelaide, and went on to lecture mathematics in the University of Singapore