11 Colleges With the Most Billionaire Alumni
The Ivy League produces a large share of the world's wealthiest.
Obtaining a college degree has always been one of the best ways to increase your lifetime earnings. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), men with college degrees earn $900,000 more in median lifetime income. Women with college degrees earn $630,000 more in median lifetime income.
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While those are impressive figures for the average person, they won’t make anyone a billionaire. But when it comes to rising to billionaire status, some colleges have a stronger track record than others. As you might expect, the colleges that produce the most billionaires are largely Ivy League universities.
But even for those who never reach 10 figures, Ivy League universities can still generate wealth. For instance, graduates from Ivy League universities have about double the salary of non-Ivy League graduates 10 years into their careers.
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By contrast, though, billionaires are in a league of their own. With 614 billionaires in the United States, having more than 10 billionaire graduates is a considerable feat. That is what we’ll walk through in this gallery, as the top 11 universities with the most billionaire graduates all have at least 10 of them.

9. (tie) Columbia University
- Location: New York
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 11
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $40,900,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $3,718,181,818
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Hedge fund managers Daniel Loeb and Noam Gottesman; New England Patriot’s owner Robert Kraft
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9. (tie) University of California, Berkeley
- Location: Berkeley, California
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 11
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $82,600,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $7,509,090,909
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Intel co-founder Gordon Moore; Silicon Valley bankroller, Masayoshi Son
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9. (tie) Princeton University
- Location: Princeton, New Jersey
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 11
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $288,400,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $26,218,181,818
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Gap retail heirs, John, Robert and William Fisher; Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
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8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 14
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $104,000,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $7,428,571,428.57
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Koch Industries CEO Charles Koch and brother William Koch; BeiGene CEO John Olyer

7. University of Southern California
- Location: Los Angeles
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 15
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $58,500,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $3,900,000,000.00
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Star Wars Creator, George Lucas; CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff; Co-founder of Public Storage, B. Wayne Hughes

6. Cornell University
- Location: Ithaca, New York
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 18
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $65,100,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $3,616,666,666.67
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Former Citigroup head, Sandy Weill; David Dufield, software entrepreneur
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5. Mumbai University
- Location: Mumbai
- Country: India
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 20
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $162,800,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $8,140,000,000.00
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Mukesh Ambani, Asia’s richest person; Uday Kotak, founded one of India’s largest banks in the private sector
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4. Yale University
- Location: New Haven, Connecticut
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 21
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $140,800,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $6,704,761,904.76
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Candy heirs John, Valerie and Victoria Mars; Oil heirs Lee, Edward, Robert and Sid Bass; Brooklyn Nets owners Joe Tsai

3. Stanford University
- Location: Stanford, California
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 28
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $124,400,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $4,442,857,142.86
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Vlad Tenev, Robinhood founder; Jerry Yang, Yahoo co-founder; David Velez, built digital bank Nubank
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2. University of Pennsylvania
- Location: Philadelphia
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 28
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $284,800,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $10,171,428,571.43
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Former U.S. President Donald J. Trump; Tesla CEO Elon Musk; Laurene Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ daughter

1. Harvard University
- Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Country: USA
- # of Billionaire Alumni: 29
- Total Net Worth of Billionaire Alumni: $207,000,000,000
- Average Billionaire Alumni Net Worth: $7,137,931,034.48
- Billionaire Alumni Example: Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein; Los Angles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer; Brazilian investment banker Jorge Paulo Lemann
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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, meaning had to graduate 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 and is up to date as of July 26, 2021.