32% of the World's Richest People Didn't Graduate from College

Forbes magazine has released its latest list of the world's richest people. Familiar names continue to dominate the list of tycoons. Interestingly, 32 percent of the world's 100 richest people did not graduate from college. One example is Bill Gates. After graduating high school, Gates enrolled at Harvard but dropped out to focus on creating the software company, Microsoft. This company propelled Bill Gates to become the world's richest person, with a fortune of US$86 billion (approximately Rp 1.1 quadrillion).

Furthermore, other prominent names like Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, share a similar story with Bill Gates; he was also expelled from Harvard for focusing on developing the Facebook social media platform. Next, 22 percent of the richest individuals majored in Engineering, while Business graduates rank third with 12 percent. Graduates in the arts, economics, and finance occupy the fourth and subsequent positions. The bottom three, comprising approximately 6 percent of Forbes' list of the 100 richest, are graduates in mathematics, science, and law.

Forbes notes that the number of billionaires worldwide increased by 13 percent to 2,043, resulting in an 18 percent rise in their total wealth to US$7.67 trillion (approximately Rp 102 quintillion). The combined wealth of the top 10 richest people in the world amounts to US$612.5 billion, or about eight percent of the total wealth of all the world's rich.