Harvard tops list of 5 US universities with the most billionaire alumni — MIT left out

These institutions have produced some of the world’s richest individuals like Tesla CEO Elon Musk and legendary investor Warren Buffett, Fortune magazine reported, citing a new study by course aggregation firm Class Central.

Dhawal Shah, the company’s founder and CEO, said the study shows a strong link between attending prestigious universities and building wealth as students at these institutions can learn from top professors and are surrounded by entrepreneurial peers similar to them.

"The availability of knowledgeable mentors, resources, insider knowledge and exclusive networks certainly increases the probability of extreme financial gain," he noted.

Although MIT has 38 billionaire alumni, it ranks behind Harvard, Stanford, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, and Columbia University, and therefore falls just short of the top five.

1. Harvard University

Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., Dec. 12, 2023. Photo by Reuters

According to the study, Harvard University stands out as the top school for billionaires, with 144 of them having attended the school. These billionaires have an average net worth of US$9.65 billion.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Airbnb cofounder Nathan Blecharczyk and cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss are some of the billionaires who graduated from Harvard.

But some of the school’s wealthiest and most famous alumni are its dropouts, including Bill Gates, who left in 1975 to start Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg, who dropped out in 2004 to focus on building Facebook.

The social media platform eventually grew into the behemoth that is Meta, but Zuckerberg could not have done so without the four co-founders he met at Harvard.

He is currently the world’s third-richest individual with a net worth of $174 billion as of April 17, according to Forbes.

Harvard has also educated a wide range of influential individuals, such as actress Natalie Portman, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, and six U.S. presidents.

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.

2. Stanford University

Stanford University Campus, the United States. Photo from the university's fanpage

Stanford University counts 94 billionaires in its alumni list, with the wealthiest being Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

The pair met while pursuing their master’s degrees in computer science at the school and went on to co-found the tech giant, according to Stanford’s website.

Page and Brin now have net worths of $128.5 billion and $123.2 billion, respectively, making them the seventh and eighth richest individuals globally as of April 17.

The Silicon Valley institution has also nurtured other tech billionaires, such as Andy Fang and Stanley Tang, who co-founded the food delivery app DoorDash while they were still students, and Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, who created what eventually became messaging app Snapchat.

Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, completed both his undergraduate and master’s degrees at the school before leaving a Ph.D. program to start the firm.

The average net worth of billionaires who have attended Stanford is $11.76 billion.

3. University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania, the United States. Photo from the university's Facebook

The University of Pennsylvania has produced 56 billionaire alumni, with an average net worth of $12.36 billion.

Among its most notable alumni are Apollo co-founders Marc Rowan and Josh Harris, as well as philanthropist and entrepreneur Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple's late co-founder Steve Jobs.

The institution has also been a popular choice for the heirs to the Estée Lauder beauty fortune, including Leonard, William, Aerin and Ronald Lauder, as reported by Forbes.

The most influential and wealthiest figures to have studied at the school are Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former U.S. President Donald Trump.

Musk, currently the world’s richest man, has an estimated net worth of $363.7 billion as of April 17.

4. University of California

The University of California, Berkeley, the United States. Photo courtesy of UC Berkeley

The University of California is the only public university in the top five, with 51 billionaire alumni who have an average net worth of $8.06 billion.

Many of these billionaires built their fortunes in the tech sector, such as Gordon Moore, co-founder of chip giant Intel, and Tony Xu, another co-founder of DoorDash and also its CEO. There is also Charles Simonyi, who played a key role in developing Microsoft’s Word and Excel applications during the firm’s early days.

Another prominent figure who has attended the school is Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese investment firm SoftBank, according to Business Insider. Son’s net worth stands at $26.7 billion as of April 17.

5. Columbia University

Columbia University's campus in New York, the United States. Photo from the university's website

Columbia University’s alumni list includes 41 billionaires with an average net worth of $11.35 billion, along with four U.S. presidents.

Some billionaires who have studied at the school are Jim Scapa, CEO of software firm Altair Engineering, and Robert Kraft, founder of Kraft Group - a holding company with diverse interests from forest products and paper and packaging manufacturing to sports and entertainment.

One of Columbia’s richest alumni is the legendary investor Warren Buffett, though he has said that business acumen and real-world experience often matter more than prestigious diplomas, according to CNBC.

Buffet is currently the fifth-richest man globally with $160.9 billion in wealth as of April 17.