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Want to be a Billionaire? Go to Harvard

Published: Dec 02, 2016

 Consulting       Education       Finance       Grad School       MBA       Salary & Benefits       
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Do billionaires (or people likely to become billionaires) go to Harvard, or does going to Harvard make you more likely to become a billionaire?

Either way, one thing is for sure: the world's wealthiest college also happens to have the wealthiest alumni—by a long distance. As the chart below shows, Harvard can boast some 35 billionaire alum, almost 3 times the amount of the next-highest producer of the mega-rich in the country—Columbia.

Among those alums with at least 10-figure net worths: Wilbur Ross, who is Donald Trump's pick for Commerce Secretary; a couple of tech giants in Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates (both of whom dropped out); Warren Buffet's right-hand man, Charles Munger; hedge fund legends John Paulson and Ray Dalio; Kraft Chairman and CEO (and New England Patriots owner) Robert Kraft; and Steven Schwarzman, CEO of the Blackstone group.

It's not all male, pale and stale, though: there are, as far as I can tell, at least 2 female billionaires out there who can claim that they went to college "in Boston"—Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman, and the current Commerce Secretary, Penny Pritzker.

But maybe the most intriguing name on the Harvard billionaire alumni list is Sebastian Pinera. Not only is he a self-made billionaire, he is also the current President of Chile. But while most schools would be loudly trumpeting either of this claims in their sales pitches to prospective students, it seems that, at Harvard, Pinera's just another face in the crowd.

Infographic: The Universities Churning Out The Most Billionaires | Statista
You will find more statistics at Statista

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