Where Did the Top 10 Richest Men in the World Go to School?

Quick Answer

As of Forbes’ June 1, 2026 ranking, the top 10 richest men in the world went to a mix of elite universities, public universities, engineering schools, and unfinished degree programs.

Several attended famous schools: Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Ecole Polytechnique, and the University of Texas at Austin all appear on the list. But the pattern is not as simple as “go to an elite school and become rich.”

Some completed degrees. Some started graduate programs and left. Some built companies while still students. The clearest lesson is that education gave many of them networks, technical skills, and timing, but wealth came from company ownership, not simply from having a famous diploma.

Top 10 Richest Men and Their Schools

The table below uses Forbes’ top 10 list dated June 1, 2026. Net worth rankings change with stock prices, so the order may shift after publication.

Rank	Person	Main company/source	Schools attended	Completed?
1	Elon Musk	SpaceX, Tesla	Queen’s University; University of Pennsylvania; briefly Stanford University	Completed Penn degrees; left Stanford quickly
2	Larry Page	Google/Alphabet	University of Michigan; Stanford University	Completed bachelor’s and master’s; left PhD path
3	Sergey Brin	Google/Alphabet	University of Maryland; Stanford University	Completed bachelor’s and master’s; left PhD path
4	Jeff Bezos	Amazon	Princeton University	Completed bachelor’s degree
5	Larry Ellison	Oracle	University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; University of Chicago	Dropped out
6	Michael Dell	Dell Technologies	University of Texas at Austin	Dropped out
7	Mark Zuckerberg	Meta/Facebook	Harvard University	Dropped out
8	Jensen Huang	Nvidia	Oregon State University; Stanford University	Completed bachelor’s and master’s
9	Bernard Arnault	LVMH	Ecole Polytechnique	Completed degree
10	Steve Ballmer	Microsoft	Harvard University; Stanford Graduate School of Business	Completed Harvard; left Stanford MBA

This list has a striking pattern: nearly everyone attended college, and most attended highly selective schools. But several did not complete the degree they began, especially when a company opportunity became unusually strong.

Individual School Paths

1. Elon Musk

Elon Musk first attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, after moving from South Africa to Canada. He later transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned degrees connected to economics and physics.

Musk also began graduate study at Stanford University in physics, but left after only a short time to focus on internet entrepreneurship during the early web boom.

His education path matters because it combined science, engineering interests, and business thinking. The physics background connects to his later work with SpaceX, Tesla, and energy systems, while economics fits the business side of building and financing companies.

The important point is not that he “dropped out” of school in a casual way. He left a Stanford graduate program after already completing undergraduate education at a major university.

2. Larry Page

Larry Page studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan before going to Stanford University for graduate work in computer science.

Stanford was central to Google’s origin. Page met Sergey Brin there, and the research project that became Google grew out of their work on search, links, and ranking web pages.

Page’s path shows the power of graduate school as a place for research and collaboration. Stanford did not simply provide a credential. It provided the environment, mentors, technical culture, and peer network where a major idea could become a company.

That does not mean every student needs Stanford. It means the right educational environment can help ideas develop faster when talented people, open problems, and resources come together.

3. Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the University of Maryland. He then went to Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree in computer science and continued into doctoral work.

Like Page, Brin left the PhD path as Google became a real company. The decision was tied to a specific opportunity, not a general rejection of education.

Brin’s education is a strong example of how public universities can lead to elite graduate programs and world-changing companies. His undergraduate foundation at Maryland prepared him for Stanford-level research.

The lesson for students is practical: undergraduate school matters, but what you do there matters more. Strong grades, projects, research experience, and technical depth can open doors beyond the name of the school.

4. Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos graduated from Princeton University in 1986 with degrees in electrical engineering and computer science. Before Princeton, he attended Miami Palmetto Senior High School in Florida and graduated as valedictorian.

His Princeton education fits Amazon’s story in an important way. Bezos did not start as a retail expert. He had a technical background, worked in finance and technology, then used the early internet to build a new kind of commerce company.

Princeton gave him a rigorous engineering and computer science foundation. That technical confidence likely helped him understand how the internet could scale.

Bezos’ path is one of the clearest examples on the list of a completed elite technical education followed by business experimentation.

5. Larry Ellison

Larry Ellison attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign but dropped out after the death of his adoptive mother. He later briefly attended the University of Chicago but did not complete a degree there either.

Ellison’s story is often used as a dropout success example, but it should be handled carefully. He did not become wealthy because he lacked a degree. He became wealthy because he built Oracle, one of the most important enterprise software companies in the world.

His path also reflects an older era of computing, when formal credentials mattered differently and major software markets were still forming.

Dropout stories are memorable, but they are not reliable career plans unless a person already has valuable skills, a concrete opportunity, and a serious fallback plan.

6. Michael Dell

Michael Dell attended the University of Texas at Austin. While there, he began selling customized computers from his dorm room, a business that eventually became Dell Technologies.

Dell left school because the company opportunity was growing quickly. His case is different from leaving school with no plan. He had customers, a product, and a business model already forming.

The University of Texas connection remains important. Dell’s company story is closely tied to Austin, and his later philanthropy has supported the university in major ways.

For students, Dell’s path shows that entrepreneurship can begin in college, but the safer lesson is not “drop out.” The better lesson is to test an idea while you still have structure, mentors, peers, and access to resources.

7. Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg attended Harvard University, where he launched Facebook as a student in 2004. He later dropped out to focus on the company.

Zuckerberg’s school path is one of the most famous modern dropout stories, but it is often misunderstood. He dropped out of Harvard after launching a fast-growing social network at a time when college-based online communities were expanding quickly.

The school itself mattered. Facebook’s early growth depended on college networks, student identity, and the social structure of university life. Harvard was not just a line on his resume; it was part of the product’s starting environment.

That makes his story less universal than it looks. Dropping out after building a rapidly growing platform is very different from dropping out before having a strong opportunity.

8. Jensen Huang

Jensen Huang earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University and a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

His education is one of the strongest engineering paths on the list. Nvidia’s rise is tied to deep technical markets: graphics processing, semiconductors, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence.

Huang’s story shows why technical depth can compound over time. Nvidia was not built overnight, and its biggest AI-era success came decades after the company was founded.

For students interested in engineering, Huang is a useful example because he completed both undergraduate and graduate technical training before cofounding Nvidia.

9. Bernard Arnault

Bernard Arnault studied at Ecole Polytechnique, one of France’s most prestigious engineering schools. He trained in engineering before entering his family’s construction business and later moving into luxury goods.

Arnault’s education path is different from the US tech founders on the list. It reflects the French grandes ecoles system, where elite schools often prepare students for leadership in business, government, engineering, and public institutions.

His wealth came from building and controlling LVMH, the world’s largest luxury group. But his engineering education likely shaped his analytical approach to strategy, acquisitions, and long-term brand management.

Arnault’s case shows that business success does not always begin with a business degree. Technical and analytical training can also lead into finance, management, and ownership.

10. Steve Ballmer

Steve Ballmer graduated from Harvard University with degrees in mathematics and economics. He later attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business but left the MBA program to join Microsoft.

Ballmer’s path combines academic strength, business training, and personal networks. He knew Bill Gates from Harvard, then joined Microsoft early enough to become one of its most important executives.

His wealth came largely from Microsoft stock, not from founding a company alone. That makes his story different from Musk, Bezos, Page, Brin, or Zuckerberg.

Ballmer’s example is a reminder that joining the right company early, contributing at a high level, and retaining ownership can also create enormous wealth.

What Students Should Learn From This List

The top 10 richest men’s education paths show several patterns:

• Most attended college.
• Many studied technical fields.
• Several attended elite universities.
• Some dropped out only after a major opportunity appeared.
• Ownership mattered more than job title.
• Networks mattered, especially at Stanford and Harvard.
• Public universities also appear, including Maryland, Michigan, Oregon State, and Texas.

The biggest myth is that billionaires prove school does not matter. The evidence here says something more balanced: school can matter a lot, but not always in the same way.

For some, school provided credentials. For others, it provided technical training. For others, it provided cofounders, early users, or access to ideas. For the dropouts, leaving school happened after they had already reached unusual momentum.

The Bottom Line

The top 10 richest men in the world went to schools including Queen’s University, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Maryland, Princeton, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, the University of Texas at Austin, Harvard, Oregon State, Ecole Polytechnique, and Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Some completed degrees. Others left before finishing. But nearly all had serious education, strong technical or analytical skills, and access to unusually valuable opportunities.

For students, the lesson is not to copy the dropout part of a billionaire story. The lesson is to build useful skills, meet serious people, work on real problems, and understand that wealth at this level usually comes from ownership, timing, and scale.