- The universities most likely to produce billionaires have just been revealed. From Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page to Elon Musk and Marc Benioff, these American institutions count some of the world’s richest and most influential figures among their alumni—and have even facilitated some of the most powerful business dream teams.
College has long been posited as a surefire way to make it. But today, as education costs have risen and white-collar jobs are sparse, early-career professionals are looking at other options. More Gen Zers have turned to trade work—like carpentry, plumbing, and welding—as a way to earn six figures without the shackles of college debt. Still, some degrees might be worth their weight in gold.
A new report from course aggregation company Class Central hails Harvard University as the hotbed for the 1%, ranking number one with the most (144) billionaires having attended the school. The average billionaire Harvard alumni boasts a net worth of $9.65 billion—with its richest former student, Mark Zuckerberg, leading with $236 billion in the bank. The Meta CEO dropped out of the university his sophomore year to focus on building Facebook into the social media empire in is today. But he couldn’t have done it without the four co-founders he met at Harvard.
It’s one of America’s most expensive universities, with tuition setting students back by as much as $82,000 a year without aid, amounting to upwards of $328,000 over the course of a four-year degree.
Still, even those who don’t make billions after graduating with Harvard degrees are getting bang for their buck—the average graduate earns a median salary of $95,114 a decade after leaving the world-renowned college. Meanwhile, the median pay for a U.S. employee with 10 years of work experience is estimated around $56,000.
But billionaires aren’t just born in the Ivy League; The top 10 list also includes state schools like the University of California. Another one of the state’s elite colleges, The University of Southern California, is where George Lucas discovered his knack for filmmaking.
“This study underscores the close link between prestigious educational institutions and wealth creation,” Dhawal Shah, founder and CEO of Class Central Founder, said in the study.
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While these universities don’t guarantee a 10-figure come-up, the campuses marshal some of the brightest minds—and deepest pockets—across the world.
As Shah points out, students have access to some of the most prestigious professors, and like-minded, entrepreneurial peers: “The availability of knowledgeable mentors, resources, insider knowledge and exclusive networks certainly increases the probability of extreme financial gain.”
Case in point: Sergey Brin and Larry Page met at Stanford University, and went on to co-found the $2 trillion market-cap business Google; Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Max Levchin met at the University of Pennsylvania, forming the $89 billion company PayPal.
Top U.S. colleges for billionaires
- Harvard University: 144 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $9.65 billion
- Notable figures include Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Bitcoin investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein.
- Stanford University: 94 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $11.76 billion
- Notable figures include Google co-founder Larry Page, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, and Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.
- University of Pennsylvania: 56 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $12.36 billion
- Notable figures include Tesla CEO Elon Musk, venture capitalist Gary Lauder, philanthropist and entrepreneur Laurene Powell Jobs, and U.S. president Donald Trump.
- University of California: 51 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $8.06 billion
- Notable figures include Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, and DoorDash CEO Tony Xu.
- Columbia University: 41 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $11.35 billion
- Notable figures include hedge fund mogul Warren Buffett, New England Patriots CEO Robert Kraft, and Altair CEO Jim Scapa.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 38 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $7.29 billion
- Notable figures include Koch co-CEO and chairman Charles Koch, Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston, and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
- Yale University: 25 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $8.11 billion
- Notable figures include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai, and oil heirs Lee, Edward, Robert and Sid Bass.
- Cornell University: 24 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $4.64 billion
- Notable figures include software entrepreneur David Duffield, former Citigroup head Sandy Weill, and travel retail mogul Chuck Feeney.
- University of Southern California: 23 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $6.46 billion
- Notable figures include energy CEO Sarath Ratanavadi, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, and Star Wars creator George Lucas.
- New York University: 22 billionaires attended
- Average net worth of billionaire alumni: $7.12 billion
- Notable figures include Interactive Brokers chair Thomas Peterffy, entrepreneur Leonard Stern, and Millennial Management founder Israel Englander.
