Who wants to be a billionaire? These universities have produced some of the world’s wealthiest

We know that money isn’t everything, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

If it’s your lifelong goal to join the ranks of the rich and famous, it might do you well to rub shoulders with the affluent and influential.

And where better than at university, where many have gotten their start?

Times Higher Education compiled a list of universities from around the world which have the most successful graduates, based on Forbes’ 2016 ranking of billionaires.

It should come as no surprise that Harvard University and Columbia University top the list, thanks to their world-class business schools.

At #1, Harvard has produced an impressive 35 billionaires worth a total of US$309.1 billion, who are worth US$8.8 billion each on average.

Second-place Columbia was not even half Harvard’s number, but still managed a respectable 12 billionaire graduates worth US$171.7 billion altogether.  

In fact, all the universities in the top 10 are U.S. institutions – the highest non-American schools on the list are the UK’s University of Oxford at joint #12 (4 billionaire graduates), followed by École Polytechnique in France at joint #15 (3).

For some of these universities, even their dropouts have gone on to greater things, such as Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, all of whom had dropped out from Harvard.

Around 74 percent of those who made it on the Forbes 500 rich list are university graduates, and together, they are worth a total of US$4.2 trillion in personal wealth.

The majority hold undergraduate degrees (53 percent), while 18 percent have Master’s degrees and some three percent obtained a doctorate-level qualification. Business and law degrees are the most prevalent among them.

You can check out the full list at https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/how-become-billionaire-where-worlds-super-rich-went-university.

Image via Shutterstock

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