[NU Sports] On this top 25 ranking we come in 9th!

[Neil Kaplan]

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/05/19/billionaires-harvard-education-biz-billies-cx_af_0519billieu.html


The Billionaire Universities
Andrew Farrell, 05.19.08, 6:17 PM ET 
    
In Pictures: The Billionaire Universities   
 By This Author 
  Andrew Farrell 
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   For every one opening at Harvard's undergraduate college, there were
14 hopeful high school applicants. Despite the daunting odds, there's
good reason to try to win one of those coveted acceptance letters. 
Harvard is consistently ranked as one of the top schools in the
country. Its $35 billion endowment makes it the best-funded college in
the United States. Oh, and there's this: Harvard students are more
likely to become billionaires than graduates of any other college.
Of the 469 Americans on Forbes' most recent list of the world's
billionaires, 50 received at least one degree from Harvard. The school
has produced 20 more current American billionaires than No. 2 on our
list, Stanford University. (See: "Interactive Map: The Forbes 400 Alumni Networks.")
Harvard's billionaire alumni are an accomplished group. They include Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news  - people ) Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and media tycoon Sumner Redstone. 
Slide Show: The Billionaire Universities 
Stanford University trails Harvard, but still boasts 30 billionaire alumni. These include Nike (nyse: NKE - news  - people ) co-founder Philip Knight and discount brokerage mogul Charles Schwab (nasdaq: SCHW - news  - people ).
Fittingly, the California university, which has produced so many
ultra-wealthy businesspeople, was founded by one. The grieving railroad
tycoon Leland Stanford decided to found a university after his only son
died of typhoid fever. With considerable land and money donations from
the Californian, the school opened its doors in 1891. 
Following Stanford is the University of Pennsylvania, with 27
graduates. Notable members of the group include real estate king Donald
Trump and SAC Capital founder Steven Cohen.
Rounding out the top five are Yale, with 19 billionaire graduates, and Columbia University,
with 15. The top school from the Midwest is the University of Chicago,
ranked seventh, with 10 grads. No. 1 from the south is Duke, with eight.
A dubious distinction goes to New York University.
The school has five dropouts who have gone on to become billionaires,
including Carl Icahn. After receiving a degree in philosophy from
Princeton, Icahn enrolled in NYU's medical school. Bored by all the
memorization required, he jumped ship to be a stockbroker.
It proved a profitable career change. The Queens, N.Y., native is
now the 46th wealthiest person in the world with a fortune of $14
billion. He could rack up another $300 million in profits if he can
push Yahoo! (nasdaq: YHOO - news  - people ) to reconsider a sale to Microsoft. 
A small group of schools account for a disproportionate amount of
billionaire education. Just 20 universities and colleges account for
52% of the billionaire graduates while 182 schools count for the
remainder.
What makes certain schools billionaire factories? For one thing,
they offer excellent educations. But they also offer networking, which
in many cases amounts to a ticket to the old-boys network, still very
much in existence these days.
Some programs, like business schools,
are more likely to produce super-high earners. Of Penn's 27 billionaire
graduates, 20 attended its prestigious Wharton business school. 
Strong research programs in developing areas of tech are important
too. Sergey Brin and Larry Page met at Stanford's storied computer
science program. The Google (nasdaq: GOOG - news  - people ) co-founders are now worth nearly $19 billion each. 
Selectivity also helps. The best schools are overwhelmed by
applicants each fall. Acceptance rates for nearly all of the top
billionaire-producing schools are below 30%. 
The low acceptance rates ensure that incoming classes are
exceptionally smart. They're full of people whose résumés already point
to great successes ahead. 
Future billionaire Patrick McGovern caught MIT's attention as a
teenager after building a computer that was unbeatable at tic-tac-toe,
a remarkable feat in the 1950s. After attending MIT on a scholarship,
McGovern began publishing magazines covering the growing computing
world. Today, his tech media empire now puts his net worth at $4.7
billion. 

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