Oct 13 (Mint) – A college education is not necessary to become one of the wealthiest persons in the US. Many billionaires never attended college, including oil tycoon Harold Hamm and the founder of Ashley Furniture Ronald Wanek. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates are two Harvard dropouts. Dropouts from New York University include Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter.
However, most of the people on Forbes 400 study at certain universities. Let’s have a look.
Stanford University
Stanford has been among the top three universities, as per QS World University Rankings 2023, since 2016. Several software entrepreneurs, including the co-founders of Snapchat Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, PayPal’s Peter Thiel, and Roblox’s David Baszucki, are Stanford alumni.
University of Southern California
George Lucas, the man behind the Star Wars and Indiana Jones film series, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at USC. Later, He pledged $175 million to the film school. Other alumni include Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff, who now serves on USC’s board of trustees, and real estate developer Rick Caruso, who plans to run for mayor of Los Angeles in the 2022 election.
Yale University
Since 2012, when Yale ranked seventh on the QS World University Rankings, Yale has only gone down in ranking. But, that hasn’t affected its popularity among the affluent. Along with his nieces Valerie and Victoria, Mars Chairman John Mars is a Yale alumnus. Other Yale grads on The Forbes 400 include American billionaires Sid and Robert Bass, Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone, and Neal Blue, CEO of General Atomics.
Harvard University
Harvard, a favourite among the wealthy, has been in the top five on the QS World University Rankings for the last 10 years. The richest Harvard alumnus on the Forbes 400 is former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Only 10 of the 400 are under the age of 40, including Airbnb co-founder and chief strategy officer Nathan Blecharczyk.
University of Pennsylvania
World’s richest man, Elon Musk, graduated from Penn, as did Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Investor Laurene Powell Jobs, President Donald Trump, American fashion designer Tory Burch and the four Lauder family members, who will inherit the Estée Lauder wealth, are all Penn alums.
