Locust Street on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania has the most billionaire alumni in the country.
The Forbes 400 of 2022 ranked the 11 most popular colleges among America’s richest. This year’s ranking includes a number of Ivy League schools as well as a few west coast institutions.
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA HOLDS THE TITLE
Penn, which is home to the famous Wharton School, is the alma mater of 17 billionaire grads—up from 14 a year ago.
Jon Gray, president and COO of private equity firm Blackstone, says the liberal arts education at Penn built a foundation for a career in business.
“Both liberal arts and finance allowed me to meet all these incredible people and really created the springboard for the rest of my life,” Gray says.
Other Penn alumni include Elon Musk, the richest person in America, and Laurene Powell Jobs, an investor and widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs.
HARVARD AND YALE TIE FOR NUMBER TWO
Harvard, which held the top spot last year, fell to number two this year. With 11 billionaire grads, Harvard shares the number two rank with Yale University.
Some billionaire alumni at Harvard include the Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the founder and CEO of Citadel, Ken Griffin.
At Yale, nearly all billionaire alumni come from two families: The Marses, of pet food and candy giant Mars Inc., and the oil-rich Bass family.
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RANKS FOURTH
The University of Southern California boasts 10 billionaire grads. Perhaps the most famous is George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. He earned a bachelor of fine arts. Lucas has since become a major donor to USC—at one time donating $175 million to USC’s cinema school.
Sources: Forbes, Forbes
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FAQs
1. Harvard University. The University produced 29 billionaires till 2021, of these 17 amassed their fortunes in the finance and investment industry. Some of them are Bitcoin twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, and Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.
What school has the richest alumni? ›
Harvard also ranks first in the number of ultra-high net worth alumni with assets greater than $30 million. Harvard's total number of ultra-high net worth alumni is more than twice that of the next highest ranking institution, Stanford University.
How many billionaires went to school? ›
Four of the 25 richest Americans attended the university, though Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg dropped out before graduating.In fact, one-fifth of billionaires on the list, including Michael Dell and Larry Ellison, dropped out of college before finishing their undergraduate degree.
What school has the most famous alumni? ›
Harvard. Being probably the most prestigious university in the world with renowned faculty of leaders in their field, Harvard churns out presidents, Nobel Prize laureates, and billionaires like crazy.
What school has the most millionaires? ›
About 35% of U.S. residents worth more than $100 million went to one of eight American universities.
- Harvard. 7%
- MIT. 5%
- Stanford University. 5%
- University of Pennsylvania. 4%
- Columbia University. 4%
- Yale University. 4%
- Cornell. 3%
- Princeton University. 3%
Some billionaire alumni at Harvard include the Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and the founder and CEO of Citadel, Ken Griffin. At Yale, nearly all billionaire alumni come from two families: The Marses, of pet food and candy giant Mars Inc., and the oil-rich Bass family.
Where do billionaires children go to college? ›
Even among people with identical SAT scores, students from the top 0.1 percent of income are more than twice as likely to get into universities like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. Public flagships such as UC Berkeley and the University of Virginia showed no such bias. Don't miss what matters.
How many billionaires are from Harvard? ›
According to a 2022 Forbes report, among the alumni of Harvard University there are 188 billionaires. This is more than any other school in the world.
What degree do most billionaires have? ›
Fittingly, the most common subject matter for higher education was economics and finance, suggesting that when you know money, you know how to make money! Billionaires such as Warren Buffett, Alice Walton, and Elon Musk have degrees in economics. The college degrees studied by billionaires in the United States.
Who is the richest Harvard graduate? ›
1. Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg (MBA '66) is the founder, CEO, and president of Bloomberg and the former three-term mayor of New York City. His net worth is estimated at $45.4 billion.
A lot of that depends on how they got their fortune. Many made good grades but then dropped out. (Mark Zuckerburg, Bill Gates, etc) The vast majority of dropouts didn't have successful careers. Also, keep in mind that most people who get good grades don't become billionaires either.
Who is the richest family in American history? ›
Rockefeller Family
One of the most famous and influential families in American history, the Rockefeller family is descended from John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil in 1870, and adjusted for inflation, is often considered to be the richest person in American history.
What is the best high school in the US? ›
U.S. News Best High Schools Rankings
- #1. The Early College at Guilford. Greensboro, NC.
- #2. Signature School. Evansville, IN.
- #3. School for Advanced Studies (SAS) Miami, FL.
Harvard University
This Ivy League school is the oldest higher education institution in the country and has the largest endowment of any school in the world. Harvard University is a private institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston.
Which university has produced the most Fortune 500 CEOS? ›
1. Harvard University – Cambridge, MA. (Harvard has 4x the number of Fortune 500 CEO's compared to Yale.) Click to tweet this.
What is the most common college degree for billionaires? ›
Top 7 degrees that make the most millionaires
- Engineering.
- Economics/Finance.
- Politics.
- Mathematics.
- Computer Science.
- Law.
- MBA.
5 Billionaires with College Degrees
- Michael Bloomberg. Johns Hopkins University and Harvard Business School graduate Michael Bloomberg is worth an estimated $60 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world, according to Forbes. ...
- Mukesh Ambani. ...
- Steven Ballmer. ...
- Phil Knight. ...
- Susanne Klatten.
