Want to Be a Billionaire? First, Get a Harvard Degree

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed)
Aug 14th 2010 at 7:01AM

Obviously you don't have to have a degree from Harvard in order to become a billionaire – but it certainly helps. According to Forbes' new ranking of universities with the highest number of billionaire alums, Harvard thrashes the competition with a record 62 billionaire grads to its credit – more than double the total of the #2 ranked school, Stanford. A whopping 62 Harvard grads are worth $1 billion or more this year, up from 54 last year. Yale clocks in at No. 5 on the list of the top 10 with 16 billionaire alums, while Princeton barely makes the cut at all, coming out tied for last place with Cornell with 9. Notable billionaire Harvard grads include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Citadel founder Kenneth Griffin, Meg Whitman of eBay and David Rockefeller Sr. Worth noting: an Ivy League degree isn't necessarily better, and Forbes points out that on last year's Forbes 400 list, at least 41 billionaires did not have a college degree at all. Check out the full list of the top 10 after the jump:

1. Harvard University
Number of billionaire graduates: 62
Change from last year: +8

2. Stanford University
Number of billionaire graduates: 28
Change: +3

3. Columbia University
Number of billionaire graduates: 20
Change: +4

4. University of Pennsylvania
Number of billionaire graduates: 18
No change year-over-year

5. Yale University
Number of billionaire graduates: 16
No change year-over-year

6. University of Chicago
Number of billionaire graduates: 13
Change: +3

7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Number of billionaire graduates: 11
No change year-over-year

8. New York University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 10
New entrant

8. Northwestern University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 10
No change year-over-year

10. Cornell University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 9
No change year-over-year

10. Princeton University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 9
New entrant

Tags: billionaire, billionaires, Chicago, Columbia University, Cornell, education, Harvard, Ivy League, Massachusetts, Meg Whitman, Michael Bloomberg, Princeton, Stanford, the rich, universities, University of Pennsylvania, wealth, Yale

Filed under: Wealth

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Bill Aug 14th 2010 10:23AM

You don't need a university degree to become a billionaire !!
Aristotle Onassis became the richest man in the world & he was uneducated !

Al.O. Aug 15th 2010 12:10AM

yea I guess not but if you don't have a degree you have to be at least very lucky and genuinely intelligent.

st2356 Apr 29th 2011 6:41AM

Not sure how Meg Whitman is counted as Harvard when she is Princeton class of 1986. How about the fact that Princeton doesn't have a law, business, or medical school, yet it still has tons of clout? It focuses completely on undergraduates. It's also one of the smallest Ivy League schools.

JPS Aug 14th 2010 9:53PM

Whitman gets counted twice - she graduated from Harvard Business School in 1979.

st2356 Aug 14th 2010 8:53PM

Not sure how Meg Whitman is counted as Harvard when she is Princeton class of 1986. Apparently they are counting every graduate program available. How about the fact that Princeton doesn't have a law, business, or medical school, yet it still has tons of clout? It focuses completely on undergraduates. It's also one of the smallest Ivy League schools.