11 Colleges That Mint Future Billionaires: Forbes

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A college degree can unlock the door to significant earnings potential. In 2021, college graduates earned an average of $22,000 more than their peers with only a high school diploma. But for some, the gap is much more pronounced.

Ultra-wealthy members of the 2022 Forbes 400 ranking attended some 150 universities worldwide. Colleges in the U.S. have reaped rich benefits from sending these folks out into the world: they sit on boards of trustees, return as bold-face commencement speakers and donate often huge sums to their alma maters.

Attending college is not a prerequisite to becoming super-rich, of course; some billionaires never enrolled and others never graduated. Twenty of the richest individuals hold only a high school diploma, and one never finished high school.

Forbes reporters found that a select few American schools produce the most billionaires. One-fourth of this year’s ranking of America’s richest people attended one of just 11 institutions.

Not everyone who graduates from a top school is headed for eye-popping wealth, but most alumni of these colleges do go on to make a comfortable living. To highlight what more typical graduates can expect, we looked at the median starting salaries of those who earned bachelor’s degrees from these institutions, according to Payscale. All were in the six figures.

See the gallery for the 11 schools with the most alumni on the 2022 Forbes 400.

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