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Talia Lakritz and Mykenna Maniece
- In June 2024, Forbes compiled a list of colleges with the most billionaire alumni.
- Of the 12 universities represented, seven are Ivy Leagues.
- University of Pennsylvania ranks No. 1, with 36 billionaires.
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The US is home to over 700 billionaires, so unsurprisingly, many ultra-rich elites attended the same top universities.
In June 2024, Forbes released a list of the colleges with the most billionaires in their alumni network. Ivy Leagues dominated the list, as seven of the most prestigious institutions had upwards of 11 billionaire graduates. (Brown University was the only Ivy not included.)
The billionaires across the 12 colleges listed have a combined net worth of nearly $1.7 trillion. This number only includes the net worths of graduated alumni, so the contributions of college dropouts like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are not included in the calculations.
From Harvard to USC, here are the colleges with the most billionaire alums, per Forbes' report. (The net worths were accurate as of June 2024.)
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The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, is just one of 36 billionaires to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania.
With a net worth of $211.1 billion, the Tesla and SpaceX founder is one of three dozen billionaires who graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, having studied economics and physics, Forbes and BI reported.
Other notable alumni include former president Donald Trump, designer Tory Burch, and Estée Lauder heirs Leonard, William, Aerin, and Ronald Lauder.
The billionaires who've graduated from this school have a net worth of $367 billion.
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Located in Silicon Valley, Stanford University has produced 30 billionaires, including tech giant Evan Spiegel.
Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel created Snapchat alongside fellow Stanford University undergrad Bobby Murphy in 2011.
Forbes reported that Spiegel dropped out in 2012 to pursue the app's development full-time, but he returned in 2018 to finish his remaining credits and graduate with a degree in product design.
Spiegel is just one of many Stanford alums who have pursued careers in tech entrepreneurship. DoorDash founders Andy Fang and Stanley Tang also attended the university during undergrad.
Stanford's billionaire graduates have a total net worth of $90 billion.
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One of Harvard University's 28 billionaires is Airbnb cofounder and CSO, Nathan Blecharczyk.
Blecharczyk graduated from Harvard in 2005 with a degree in computer science.
The university's alumni page reported that during its 2015 Summer Camp program for students interning in Silicon Valley, Blecharczyk said he was drawn to the university because "there were people who were not just passionate about what I was interested in but about so many different topics."
Other billionaires who have graduated from Harvard include Tom Werner, cofounder and chairman of Fenway Sports Group, and Jim Koch, creator of Sam Adams.
While famous names like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg also attended the prestigious Cambridge Ivy, both are dropouts, so their net worths are not included in the alumni total of $261 billion.
Yale University has produced 19 billionaires, who have a total net worth of $149 billion.
It includes members of the Mars family — the second-richest family in the US and best known for making iconic candy like M&M's, Snickers, and Twix — FedEx founder Fred Smith and Pinterest founders Ben Silbermann and Paul Sciarra.
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Robert F. Smith, the richest Black man in America, is one of 13 billionaires who attended Cornell University.
Robert F. Smith graduated from Cornell in 1985 with a degree in chemical engineering.
Although he accumulated wealth as the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, he credits Cornell and his engineering background with his success.
"I have had the privilege of being a Cornell graduate with a degree in engineering. I credit much to my career success to being an engineer by training. Engineers solve problems and fix things," Smith said after the university named the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering after him in 2016, per the Cornell Chronicle.
Other ultra-rich alumni include fifth-generation members of the SC Johnson family, Moderna cofounder Robert Langer, and Workday and PeopleSoft cofounder David Duffield.
Cornell's billionaire alums have a total net worth of $60.4 billion.
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The University of Southern California isn't just known for its athletics; the private university has produced 12 billionaires.
George Lucas, the renowned storyteller behind the "Star Wars" universe, graduated from USC's School of Cinematic Arts in 1967, per the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
The first "Star Wars" movie was released 10 years later, and now Lucas has a net worth of $5.3 billion.
Outside entertainment, the university has produced several real estate moguls, including Rick Caruso and Edward Roski Jr., and Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff.
USC's 12 billionaire alums have a total net worth of $72.5 billion.
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Princeton University in New Jersey has produced 12 billionaires, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Princeton's 12 billionaire alum have the second-highest combined net worth of $292 billion thanks to Bezos, the second-richest man in the world with a $203.6 billion fortune.
Other notable Princeton alumni who have achieved billionaire status include investor Carl Icahn, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's list of prestigious graduates includes 11 billionaires.
With a total net worth of $88.3 billion, MIT's alumni network features prominent entrepreneurs in tech and engineering.
MIT's nanoscience research building on the Cambridge campus is named after billionaire Lisa Su, the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, who graduated in 1994. Dropbox founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi also met as students at MIT.
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Two of Dartmouth College's 11 billionaire alumni have served on its board of trustees.
Lone Pine Capital hedge fund founder Stephen Mandel Jr., a third-generation Dartmouth graduate, chaired the board of trustees from 2010 to 2014, per Forbes.
Apollo Global Management cofounder Leon Black also served as a trustee of Dartmouth and donated $48 million to build the Black Family Visual Arts Center on campus in Hanover, New Hampshire, Forbes reported.
Dartmouth's wealthiest alumni have a net worth of $48.5 billion.
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Among Columbia University's 11 billionaires is New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
Kraft, worth an estimated $11.1 billion, has donated $8 million to Columbia since graduating in 1963. Those funds contributed to the construction of Columbia and Barnard's Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life in New York City.
HIG Capital CEO Sami Mnaymneh, Mediacom founder Rocco Commisso, and Third Point hedge fund founder Daniel Loeb are also Columbia graduates.
The net worth of Columbia's billionaire alumni is $49.5 billion.
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Ten graduates of the University of Michigan went on to become billionaires.
Google cofounder Larry Page remains the University of Michigan's wealthiest graduate with a net worth of $146.1 billion, according to Forbes.
Other billionaire alumni, including Related Companies founder Stephen Ross and Groupon cofounder Eric Lefkofsky, bring the total net worth of the University of Michigan's richest graduates to $181 billion.
The University of California, Berkeley has also produced 10 billionaires.
The net worth of all 10 billionaire graduates of UC Berkeley totals $30.4 billion. Charles Simonyi, one of the Microsoft developers behind Word and Excel, is the university's richest graduate, with a net worth of $7.7 billion.
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