If You Want To Be A Billionaire, Go To One Of These Colleges

Publish date: 2024-06-09

We like to tell the stories of college dropouts who became billionaires, but the truth is, only 30% of billionaires don't have a college degree. For every Bill Gates, there are about three Marc Benioffs. The other 70% of the world's 1% have graduated from college with at least a bachelor's degree. Not surprisingly, Harvard and Stanford are the universities with the highest number of billionaire alumni, but the eight others we've highlighted below have their fare share of wealthy alums as well. Also not surprisingly, the Ivy League schools feature prominently in the top 10 (as does my alma mater).

Here are the 10 colleges with the highest number of billionaire alumni:

#10) New York University

New York, New York

Billionaires with degrees: 22

Notable Alumnus: John Paulson, Paulson & Co., $10 billion net worth

#9) University of Chicago

Chicago, Illinois

Billionaires with degrees: 22

Notable Alumnus: Thomas Pritzker, Hyatt Hotels heir, $3.1 billion net worth

#8) Yale University

New Haven, Connecticut

Billionaires with degrees: 23

Notable Alumnus: Stephen Schwarzman, The Blackstone Group, $13.4 billion net worth

#7) University of Southern California

Los Angeles, California

Billionaires with degrees: 24

Notable Alumnus: Marc Benioff, Salesforce founder, $3.2 billion net worth

#6) Cornell University

Ithaca, New York

Billionaires with degrees: 26

Notable Alumnus: Herbert Fisk Johnson III, SC Johnson, $3.6 billion net worth

#5) Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Billionaires with degrees: 31

Notable Alumnus: David Koch, Koch Industries, $40 billion net worth

#4) Columbia University

New York, New York

Billionaires with degrees: 43

Notable Alumnus, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, $65 billion

#3) University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Billionaires with degrees: 54

Notable Alumnus: Ron Perelman, Revlon, $12.4 billion net worth

#2) Stanford University

Palo Alto, California

Billionaires with degrees: 67

Notable Alumnus: Sergey Brin, Google, $37 billion net worth

#1) Harvard University

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Billionaires with degrees: 134

Notable Alumnus: Jorge Lehman, Anheuser-Busch InBev, $26.9 billion

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