Rich without degrees

A global census has recently found that only two-thirds of the world’s billionaires have a university degree.

The information was collected from the profiles of extremely wealthy individuals, the Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census, which are annually produced by a Swiss banking group and a Singaporean financial intelligence firm.

Examining the background of more than 2,300 billionaires, the study found that wealth accumulation is in fact self-taught and results from being a self-starter trained on the market stall as opposed to being an intellectual.

The study revealed that only two-thirds of billionaires had an undergraduate degree. However, a smaller 25 percent of billionaires had a masters degree. Meanwhile, only 10 percent had remained in education to achieve a doctorate.

However, when billionaires do attend universities they typically attend prestigious universities. Amongst the 20 universities most popular with billionaires, US elite institutions featured highly on the list, including prominent universities such as Harvard, Yale, and Stanford.

The University of Mumbai in India and the Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia also ranked highly on the list, boasting a large amount of billionaire alumni.

The London School of Economics was the only British University to be on the list.

Mallika Vaznaik, a first-year PPE student, commented: “I am not worried by this actually. I just think perhaps billionaires are more likely to not pursue higher education because they already have brilliant ideas for any enterprise and then they have a head start.”

Ms Vaznaik added: “Also, perhaps most people just see universities as a security measure for a more secure future so might be less willing to take risks in businesses.”