If you’re hoping to become a billionaire like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Liliane Bettencourt and Mark Zuckerberg, like many of us do, look no further. We’ve put this little guide together to help you kick-start your journey to ultimate financial success.
Billionaires’ Degree Backgrounds
The first question that you might ask is whether you need a degree to become a billionaire. The short answer is: no, you don’t.
While most fat cats have obtained some sort of higher educational qualifications, like a bachelor’s or a master’s degree, a 2015 study by Approved Index found that one third of the world’s top 100 billionaires had made their fortunes without a tertiary education.
Look at Microsoft founder-cum-philanthropist Bill Gates, for example, who dropped out of Harvard in 1974. Then there’s Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who also dropped out of Harvard, and Amancio Ortega (the man behind Zara) who left school at age 14 and never looked back.
If you’re still bent on going to uni, though, the best degree to pursue is one in engineering – not least because it has the highest salary.
| Degree | Percentage | Average Wealth (in billions) |
| None | 32 per cent | $24.03 (£19.55) |
| Engineering | 22 per cent | $25.77 (£20.73) |
| Business | 12 per cent | $22.50 (£18.10) |
| Arts | 9 per cent | $20.51 (£16.50) |
| Economics | 8 per cent | $22.10 (£17.78) |
| Finance | 3 per cent | $15.83 (£12.73) |
| Science | 2 per cent | $12.50 (£10.06) |
| Mathematics | 2 per cent | $17.75 (£14.29) |
| Law | 2 per cent | $13.20 (£10.63) |
| Other | 8 per cent | $19.66 (£15.83) |