11 Colleges With the Most Billionaire Alumni

Obtaining a college degree has always been one of the best ways to increase your lifetime earnings. According to Forbes, which cites a Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce report, adults with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $2.8 million over their careers, a significant $1.2 million more than those with only a high school diploma.

Most people don’t expect to earn billions in college, but some colleges have a track record for producing more billionaires than average. As you might expect, the colleges that produce the most billionaires are primarily Ivy League universities.

Ivy League universities can generate wealth even for those who have yet to reach ten figures. On average, Ivy League graduates earn quite a bit more than those who graduate from other kinds of four-year colleges and universities.

According to Crimson Education, which cites data from PayScale of over 1,500 schools, Ivy League graduates earned a median pay of $86,025 in 2022. Those who graduated from other universities only earned $58,643 These numbers increased significantly by mid-career, with the Ivy League graduates earning $161,888 mid-career compared to $101,777 at other universities. However, it’s worth pointing out that tuition at these schools can range from $55,000 to $60,000 annually, so a strong return on investment is expected. 

By contrast, though, billionaires are in a league of their own. According to Forbes, there are 813 billionaires in the U.S., so having more than 10 billionaire graduates is a considerable feat. 

All data comes from Forbes and is accurate as of 2024. We’ll list the colleges with the most billionaire alumni.

• Location: Berkeley, California
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 10
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $30.4 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Intel co-founder Gordon Moore; Silicon Valley bankroller Masayoshi Son; DoorDash CEO Tony Xu.

• Location: Ann Arbor, Michigan
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 10
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $181 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni Example: The wealthiest alumnus is Larry Page, who earned his bachelor’s in engineering in 1995 and started Google three years later. Stephen Ross, founder of Related Companies, donated $100 million in 2004, $200 million in 2013 and $50 million in 2017 to the college. The co-founder of Groupon, Eric Lefkofksy, started his entrepreneurial career while studying at UM by selling carpets out of his van as a freshman.

• Location: New York
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 11
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $40.9 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Hedge fund managers Daniel Loeb and Noam Gottesman; New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft; James Scapa, CEO of the software company Altair.

• Location: Hanover, New Hampshire
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 11
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $48.5 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: It’s worth mentioning that most of Dartmuth’s rich alumni earned their wealth through private equity. Leon Black, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management, studied philosophy and history at the college. Other notable alumni include Holden Spaht, Jim Coulter, Tench Coxe and Stephen Mandel Jr.

• Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 14
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $104 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch and brother William Koch; BeiGene CEO John Olyer.

• Location: Princeton, New Jersey
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 11
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $288.4 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Gap retail heirs John, Robert and William Fisher; former Google CEO Eric Schmidt; Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and ex-wife Mackenzie Scott.

• Location: Los Angeles
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 15
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $58.5 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: “Star Wars” creator George Lucas; Brazilian director Walter Salles; Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff; Public Storage co-founder B. Wayne Hughes and children Tamara Gustavon and B. Wayne Hughes Jr.

• Location: Ithaca, New York
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 18
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $65.1 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Former Citigroup head Sandy Weill; Robert F. Smith, whom the university’s medical school is named after; David Dufield, software entrepreneur; and MIT scientist Robert Langer, who earned his billions with a 3% stake in biotech firm Moderna.

• Location: New Haven, Connecticut
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 21
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $140.8 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Candy heirs John, Valerie and Victoria Mars; oil heirs Lee, Edward, Robert and Sid Bass; Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai; Paul Sciarra, co-founder of Pinterest.

• Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 29
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $207 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein; Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer; Brazilian investment banker Jorge Paulo Lemann; Cameron and Tyler Winkelvoss, who made and lost billions in Bitcoin.

• Location: Stanford, California
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 28
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $124.4 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Vlad Tenev, Robinhood founder; Jerry Yang, Yahoo co-founder; David Velez, founder of digital bank Nubank ; Ben Huston, Carvana co-founder; and Rich Barton, co-founder of Zillow.

• Location: Philadelphia
• Number of Billionaire Alumni: 28
• Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $284.8 billion
• Notable Billionaire Alumni: Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump; Tesla CEO Elon Musk; Laurene Powell Jobs (Steve Jobs’ daughter).

Martin Dasko and Jordan Rosenfeld contributed to the reporting of this article.

^{Photo disclaimer: Any photos are for illustrative purposes only.}

Methodology: For this piece GOBankingRates used Forbes 2021 billionaire data to find the colleges with the most billionaire alumni. GOBankingRates found the 11 colleges with the most billionaire alumni while collecting the following data points: (1) name of college; (2) location of college; (3) country of college; (4) number of billionaire alumni who graduated with a degree from said college; (5) total net worth of billionaire alumni; (6) average billionaire alumni net worth; and (7) some examples of the billionaire alumni from each college. All data was collected on Aug. 17, 2022 and is up to date as of March 1, 2023.