The Billionaire College Ranking Nobody Talks About

Harvard isn’t just ahead — it’s absolutely dominating. With 104 billionaire alumni, it’s got more than the next five universities combined. We’re talking Bloomberg, the Winklevoss twins, Penny Pritzker — basically the entire Forbes list went to Harvard at some point.

But here’s what’s wild: Stanford comes in second with 69 billionaires, and the gap between #1 and #2 isn’t even close. Two researchers (Young from UMass and Salas Díaz from Dartmouth) analyzed the credentials of 9,000+ global elites and found that elite universities aren’t just producing rich people — they’re basically gatekeeping wealth.

The top 21 schools account for a huge chunk of billionaire founders and corporate leaders. Stanford’s got tech founders from Google, Netflix, LinkedIn, Snapchat. UPenn? That’s where Elon Musk and Trump graduated.

Here’s the thing though: these schools aren’t “factories” producing billionaires. What they’re actually doing is connecting people to people, creating networks that last lifetimes. A Yale Law degree isn’t magic — it’s the Yale network attached to your resume forever.

So the real question: Are these schools creating wealth, or just filtering people who were already going to be rich?

Top 5 by billionaire count:

1. Harvard: 104
2. Stanford: 69
3. UPenn: 38
4. Columbia: 32
5. MIT: 28