Want to Be a Billionaire? First, Get a Harvard Degree

Article by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) from luxist.com

Obviously you don't have to have a degree from Harvard in order to become a billionaire – but it certainly helps. According to Forbes' new ranking of universities with the highest number of billionaire alums, Harvard thrashes the competition with a record 62 billionaire grads to its credit – more than double the total of the #2 ranked school, Stanford. A whopping 62 Harvard grads are worth $1 billion or more this year, up from 54 last year. Yale clocks in at No. 5 on the list of the top 10 with 16 billionaire alums, while Princeton barely makes the cut at all, coming out tied for last place with Cornell with 9. Notable billionaire Harvard grads include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Citadel founder Kenneth Griffin, Meg Whitman of eBay and David Rockefeller Sr. Worth noting: an Ivy League degree isn't necessarily better, and Forbes points out that on last year's Forbes 400 list, at least 41 billionaires did not have a college degree at all. 

1. Harvard University
Number of billionaire graduates: 62
Change from last year: +8


2. Stanford University
Number of billionaire graduates: 28
Change: +3


3. Columbia University
Number of billionaire graduates: 20
Change: +4


4. University of Pennsylvania
Number of billionaire graduates: 18
No change year-over-year


5. Yale University
Number of billionaire graduates: 16
No change year-over-year


6. University of Chicago
Number of billionaire graduates: 13
Change: +3


7. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Number of billionaire graduates: 11
No change year-over-year


8. New York University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 10
New entrant


8. Northwestern University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 10
No change year-over-year


10. Cornell University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 9
No change year-over-year


10. Princeton University (tie)
Number of billionaire graduates: 9
New entrant