truth123

For those of you who want to know which college is going to "make" you rich:

1) Bill Gates - Harvard (dropout)
2) Warren Buffett - U. of Nebraska; Columbia
3) Larry Ellison - UChicago (dropout)
4) Charles Koch - MIT
5) David Koch - MIT
6) Christy Walton - no college
7) George Soros - London School of Economics
8) Sheldon Adelson - City College of New York (dropout)
9) Jim Walton - University of Arkansas
10) Alice Walton - Trinity University

On a side note, Carlos Slim of Mexico, the richest man in the world, went to Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

Source: Forbes 400
The Richest People in America - Forbes

Carlos Slim Helu & family - Forbes

Davidabb84

Two "Big State U" (for undergrad, at least). Three drop-outs, and one with no college. Counting Gates dropping out, 3 from the Ivy League.

Ivy League rejects, despair not thus!

ucbalumnus

But three of them have wealth that is due in large part to inheritance, right?

The one who built up the wealth that they inherited had a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Missouri.

bison151515

3 from Ivy? I count only two. Five including just the top colleges

Edit: American Colleges.

Alexandre

David, if this thread were titled "Where the 11 Richest Americans Went to College", you would have two more "Big State U" (Sergey Brin - Maryland and Larry Page - Michigan) represented!

Fickle

I don't know if I would include all of the Waltons, since all of them got rich by... inheriting their money.

terenc

Charles and David Koch inherited their father's company.
All of the Waltons also inherited their wealth.

coureur

If anything, this list shows that having a rich daddy is a more dependable route to big riches than is attending a high-end school.

So if for some reason dear old Dad isn't pulling through for you on the fat wallet front, you better shoot for a high-end school as a back-up plan.

bclintonk

Looking just at undergrad, the University of Nebraska gets to claim Warren Buffet. He later got a master's degree at Columbia. So that means just one of the top 10 had an Ivy League undergraduate background (Bill Gates at #1, Harvard), and he was a dropout.

Forbes #11-30 (undergrad only):

11. S. Robson Walton, University of Arkansas
12. Michael Bloomberg, Johns Hopkins
13. Jeff Bezos, Princeton
14. Mark Zuckerberg, Harvard (dropout)
15. Sergey Brin, University of Maryland
15. Larry Page, University of Michigan
17. John Paulson, NYU
18. Michael Dell, University of Texas – Austin (dropout)
19. Steve Ballmer, Harvard
20. Forrest Mars, Jr., Yale
20. Jacqueline Mars, Bryn Mawr
20. John Mars, Yale
23. Paul Allen, Washington State (dropout)
24. Phil Knight, University of Oregon
25. Carl Icahn, NYU (dropout), Princeton
26. Donald Bren, University of Washington
27. Ann Cox Chambers, Finch College
28. Ronald Perelman, Penn
29. Abigail Johnson, Hobart and William Smith
30. James Simon, MIT


A few more Ivies in this group but they include some more inherited wealth (e.g., Mars, Mars & Mars), suggesting inherited wealth may be as much a predictor of Ivy admission as an Ivy education is a predictor of earned wealth. Among those who earned it, public universities are well represented. Also, notice the Ivies here are mostly HYP; only Ronald Perelman at #28 (Penn) claims a non-HYP Ivy undergrad background.

Bill73

"3) Larry Ellison - UChicago (dropout)"

He went to the University of Illinois before the University of Chicago.

Big10Champ

^Woot!



I really have no hopes of becoming rich in this lifetime, however.

Lists like these are fun, but always misleading. But it's surely a nice thing to show Bob or Jane who's feeling down about not attending an Ivy.

LurkerDad

I'm not sure "dropout" is a fair description of Gates, Allen, Dell, and Zuckerberg, as "dropout" connotes poor performance or lack of direction. It might be more accurate to say that they each took a leave of absence from college to found some of the most successful and influential companies in history.

Icahn got a bachelor's degree from Princeton.

JimboSteve

I don't think that these individuals' successes are typical of the results one would expect from any college.

Ghostt

Um, no, they dropped out of college to do other stuff. They certainly weren't the first people in history to drop out of college with the intention to found a business/pursue an acting career/become a musician/whatever. It's just that things worked out for them.

To say that they took a leave of absence would be much more disingenuous than to say they dropped out; none of them is thinking of returning to college.

UKgirl23

A college degree won't make you the richest person alive, but it sure as hell means your less likely to be poor. So attending an ivy is still a big deal, unless you have the next ground breaking business up your sleeve, then it matters very little.