Business

The Universities Producing The Most Billionaires

Image Courtesy Of Visual Capitalist

This visualization ranks institutions by billionaire alumni, highlighting U.S. dominance and the growing role of Asian universities. The data comes from Salas Díaz & Young (2024). The study was published in September 2024, but the underlying data was collected in March 2021.

This article was written by Bruno Venditti and originally published by Visual Capitalist.

Harvard: Billionaire Central

Harvard has produced 125 billionaires in total, with a combined estimated wealth of almost $600 billion. The university tops our list, even without counting names like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, who studied there but never completed their degrees.

School Name	Number of Billionaires	Country	Billionaire Alumni	Source of Wealth
Harvard University	104	USA	Steve Ballmer, Michael Bloomberg	Microsoft, Microsoft, Bloomberg L.P.
Stanford University	69	USA	Jerry Yang, Andy Fang	Yahoo, DoorDash
University of Pennsylvania	38	USA	Elon Musk	Tesla
Columbia University	32	USA	Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway
Massachusetts Institute of Technology	28	USA	Charles Koch	Koch Industries
Yale University	24	USA	Stephen A. Schwarzman	Blackstone Group
Cornell University	22	USA	Robert F. Smith	Vista Equity Partners
University of Mumbai	22	India	Mukesh Ambani	Reliance Industries
Tsinghua University	19	China	Sun Hongbin	Sunac China Holdings
New York University	18	USA	John Paulson	Paulson & Co. (hedge fund)
University of Southern California	17	USA	George Lucas	Lucasfilm (Star Wars franchise)
University of California, Berkeley	15	USA	Tony Xu	DoorDash
University of Michigan	15	USA	Larry Page	Google
Peking University	14	China	Robin Li	Baidu
Moscow State University	13	Russia	Andrey Melnichenko	EuroChem
Princeton University	13	USA	Jeff Bezos	Amazon
University of California, Los Angeles	12	USA	Larry Fink	BlackRock
University of Chicago	12	USA	Joe Mansueto	Morningstar, Inc. i
Fudan University	12	China	Bruno Wu	Sun Media / Entertainment
Seoul National University	12	South Korea	Kim Beom-soo	Kakao
Zhejiang University	12	China	Colin Huang (Huang Zheng)	Pinduoduo

Stanford University, with its deep ties to Silicon Valley, counts Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang among its billionaire alumni. The University of Pennsylvania produced Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Columbia University lists Warren Buffett, the legendary investor behind Berkshire Hathaway, among its most notable graduates, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has shaped both tech and industrial leaders, including Charles Koch of Koch Industries.

U.S. vs Asia: Power Shift Underway

While U.S. schools still dominate the top slots, the Salas Díaz & Young data shows how universities in Asia are rising fast.

Institutions such as the University of Mumbai, Tsinghua, Peking University, and Seoul National University now appear in the top 20 for billionaire alumni. The shift coincides with Asia’s broader economic expansion, higher rates of entrepreneurship, and strengthening of domestic capital markets.

For example, Peking University, one of China’s most prestigious schools, counts Baidu co-founder Robin Li among its billionaire alumni. Similarly, Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries and India’s richest man, studied chemical engineering at the University of Mumbai.