The 2,755 people on Forbes’ 2021 billionaires list received their undergraduate education from all over the world inclusive of universities such as Al-Azhar University in Egypt and Zhejiang University of Technology in China.
Many of the billionaires on the list did not attend university or dropped out before being able to attain a diploma; among the five richest people in the world is Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg who both dropped out of Harvard before graduating. However, among the billionaires who did complete an undergrad, there a few schools which stand out.
Harvard is ranked number one in terms of the university to produce the most billionaires with the figure being at 29 billionaire alumni. The university is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and estimated to have a net worth of $207 billion.
The billionaire alumni are inclusive of Bitcoin twins, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and former CEO of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein. However, among the richest of the Harvard alumni is Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer whose $68.7 billion fortune is premised on his time at Microsoft. Another billionaire attendee is Jorge Paulo Lemann, a Brazilian investment banker whose fortune is premised on good decision making in the food and drink industry.
Ranked at joint second is University of Pennsylvania and Stanford University. Both universities have produced a total of 28 billionaires with the University of Pennsylvania having a net worth of $284.8 billion and located in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania’s billionaire alumni include former US President Donald Trump and the founder of Tesla Elon Musk.
This year the university has produced two new billionaires: CEO of JG Summit, Lance Gokongwei and venture capitalist Gary Lauder is has inherited a large proportion of his wealth from cosmetics empire Estee Lauder which was established by his grandmother.
Stanford University, located in California, has a current net worth of $124.4 billion and is the university which as of this year has the most newly attained billionaires in comparison with any other school. The new attained billionaire alumni append with David Velez who built Nubank into the world’s most valuable digital bank; Baiju Bhatt and Vlad Tenev whose no commission non-profit platform Robinhood was at the forefront of the Gameshop short squeeze.
At number four of the top ten universities to produce billionaire alumni is Yale University. Located in New Haven, Connecticut and with a net worth of $140.8 billion, Yale has produced a total of 21 billionaires. Amongst the 21 billionaires are the likes of John, Valerie, and Victoria Mars, in addition to oil heirs Lee, Edward, Robert, and Sid Bass.
Following Yale University in the top ranking is India based university, Mumbai University. With produce of 20 billionaires and a net worth of $162.8 billion, Mumbai University has had its billionaire alumni inclusive of Asia’s richest billionaire, Mukesh Ambani – whose fortune is mostly inherited – runs Reliance Industries which is a conglomerate with activity in oil and gas, petrochemicals, and telecommunications. Coming in second as Mumbai’s richest alumni is Uday Kotak who founded and operates one of India’s largest banks in the private sector.
At number six is Cornell University. Located in Ithaca, New York and with a net worth of $65.1 billion, Cornell University has had 18 billionaires graduate from its university. Said graduates are said to be former Citigroup head Sandy Weill, private equity titan Robert F Smith, and Software Engineer David Duffield.
The remainder of the universities in the top ten are inclusive of the University of Southern California, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University tied with the University of California Berkley (all listed in chronological order).
USC has had the likes of George Lucas and Marc Benioff in the billionaire attendees; MIT has produced billionaires such as the Koch brothers and Dropbox co-founder Drew Houston; Princeton’s billionaire alumni are inclusive of the richest man in the world Jeff Bezos and his ex-wife Mackenzie Scott whose combined wealth make up 80% of Princeton’s total billionaire graduate wealth; the University of California Berkley has seen billionaires such as Timothy Springer and Robert Langer whose fortune has been attained through stakes in vaccine maker Moderna.
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