The 8 US colleges that produce the most multi-millionaires, ranked

Publish date: 2024-08-03
2023-02-17T04:59:50Z

Eight universities in the US educate 35% of all its centi-millionaires according to a new wealth report by London-based consultancy Henley & Partners.

65% come from the country's other colleges, it said.

The report said there were 9,630 centi-millionaires — people with $100 million or more — living in the US as of December 2022.

Here is the list.

8. Princeton University

Blair Hall at Princeton University. Loop Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Location: Princeton, New Jersey

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,500

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $57,410

The university accounts for 3% of all centi-millionaires in the country, per the wealth report. 

One of the most prominent Princeton alumni is Jeff Bezos, the chairman and founder of Amazon. The 1986 graduate was worth $122 billion and the third-richest person in the world as of February 17, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Other notable alumni include Michelle Obama and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

7. Cornell University

Barnes Hall at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Location: Ithaca, New York

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 3,218

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $62,456 

The university accounts for 3% of all centi-millionaires in the country.

Cornell's list of prominent alumni include Bill Nye, the host of "Bill Nye the Science Guy," which aired between 1993 to 1998.

Other famous alumni include Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Ratan Tata, the super-wealthy chairman of Indian conglomerate Tata Group. 

6. Yale University

Yale University's Cross Campus looking towards Sterling Library. Kathryn Donohew Photography/Getty Images

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,789

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $64,700

The university accounts for 4% of all centi-millionaires in the country. One of them is Ben Silbermann, the co-founder of Pinterest who graduated from Yale in 2003. He was worth $1.5 billion as of February 16, per Forbes

Other notable alumni include former President Bill Clinton and 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, who met while studying in Yale Law and graduated together in 1973. 

5. Columbia University

Columbia University Library Stock Photo/Getty Images

Location: New York City, New York

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,560

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $65,524

The school's alumni base boasts 4% of the richest Americans, including like Warren Buffet, the investing legend and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who went to Columbia's business school.

He was the fifth-wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $108 billion as of February 2017, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Sallie Krawcheck, former CEO of Citi Global Wealth Management, and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft also attended.

4. University of Pennsylvania

View of the University of Pennsylvania with the Philadelphia skyline behind. Pablo Garcia/Getty Images

Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 2,409

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $56,212

UPenn has produced 4% of the country's centi-millionaires, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Musk was the second-richest person in the world as of 17 February, per Bloomberg, with a net worth of $183 billion. He graduated UPenn in the 1990s with a degree in economics.

Former President Donald Trump is an alumnus of UPenn's Wharton School of Finance. 

The percentage of centi-millionaires coming from UPenn has risen compared to a decade ago, expert Andrew Amoils told Insider.

Amoils is the head of research for New Worth Wealth, a company that partnered with Henley & Partners to get data for the report. 

3. Stanford University

Stanford University's Hoover Tower, as see through the arches of the Main Quadrangle on its campus. David Madison/Getty Images

Location: Stanford, California

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,736

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $57,693

With 5% of America's richest coming from Stanford University, the college is third on the list. Notable alumni include Google founder Sergei Brin and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.

While other universities in the list have remained relatively constant in the percentage of centi-millionaires they produce, Stanford's percentage has risen compared to a decade ago, Amoils said. 

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Ray and Maria Stata Center is shown on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,136

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $57,590

The second university on the list is Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has produced 5% of the country's richest. These include former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain.

Other famous alumni of MIT include former Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Bill Hewlett, co-founder of Hewlett-Packard.

Along with UPenn and Stanford, MIT's has produced a greater number of centi-millionaires, compared to 10 years ago, Amoils said. 

1. Harvard University

The campus of Harvard Business School, the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, MA. Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images

Location: Boston, Massachusetts

Approx. size of each undergraduate class: 1,984

Cost of tuition as of 2023: $52,659

At the top of the list is Harvard University, whose alumni account for 7% of the country's centi-millionaires.

Some of the biggest technology bigwigs are Harvard alumni, like the co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, who had a net worth of $117 billion as of February 17, per Bloomberg.

Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard in 2002 but dropped after founding Facebook. His net worth was $64.2 billion on February 17, Bloomberg said.

Harvard, which is the oldest college in the country, also claims the title of the institution that has produced the largest number of US presidents. Eight of its alumni went on to lead the country: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, John F. Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bush, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Barack Obama.

Correction: February 19, 2023: An earlier version of this story misstated the size of undergraduate classes at Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and MIT respectively. At Princeton, an undergraduate class is 1,500 students, not 5,548. At Yale, it's 1,789, not 6,494. At Columbia, it's 1,560, not 9,739. At MIT, it's 1,136, not 4,657.

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