New Study: California’s 10 Universities That Produce the Most CEOs

What type of education does it take to climb to the top of America’s largest companies?

The online learning provider Preply has conducted extensive research to identify the best schools in the world for becoming a leading CEO.

Stanford, UCLA, and the University of Southern California are the top schools for producing CEOs in the state of California.

California’s 10 Universities That Produce the Most CEOs:

1. Stanford University
2. University of California, Los Angeles
3. University of Southern California
4. California State University
5. Claremont McKenna College
6. California Institute of Technology
7. Pepperdine University
8. Santa Clara University
9. University of San Francisco
10. University of Southern California

America’s 10 Universities That Produce the Most CEOs

1. Harvard University
2. University of Pennsylvania
3. Stanford University
4. University of California, Los Angeles
5. Columbia University
6. Northwestern University
7. New York University
8. University of Texas
9. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
10. University of Chicago

Most CEOs have a degree in economics, business, and engineering

If there’s one thing that can be taken from the educational backgrounds of chief executives of the Forbes list of largest companies, it is that there are many paths to success.

The majority studied economics (11.6%), business (7.6%), engineering (5.3%), law (4.1%), and finance (3.3%), while others majored in history, geology, and psychology.

35% of top CEOs have a master’s or doctorate degree

There are of course plenty of CEOs with master’s or doctorate degrees (35%). There are also plenty of MBAs – 227, to be exact.

But there are at least 192 executives in the study who didn’t go to graduate school at all. These include current and former big-company CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, and Richard Branson of Virgin.

There is no one type of university for becoming a CEO

Overall, the Forbes CEOs attended 598 different colleges globally for their undergraduate and graduate degrees.
There is no one type of university that dominates the list, either. From the 20 colleges that graduated the most CEOs globally, the list includes traditional liberal arts colleges, Ivy League schools, public universities, and colleges known for their technology and computer science programs.

The degrees of the Forbes list leaders demonstrate that a variety of colleges – some household names and others hidden gems can put you on a path to success to becoming a CEO.

“The Forbes list of CEOs are arguably some of the most influential leaders in the world. We wanted to better understand what this elite group of people has in common and what it takes to climb to the top,” says Amy Pritchett, Student Success Manager of Preply. “We know that many universities offer exceptional education and business degrees. We wanted to find out if there are colleges with a track record of developing strong leadership. Looking at this research, it’s clear that there are some universities with the right ingredients to create successful CEOs.”

Preply is a global language learning marketplace, connecting 140,000 tutors with tens of thousands of students from all over the world.

Founded in 2012 and backed by some of the world’s leading investors, Preply is on a mission to shape the future of effective learning. Fueled by a belief that live engagement with a teacher is still the most effective way to learn a new skill, Preply is building a personalized learning space that will enable individual learners to reach their goals in the fastest way possible.

To view ‘The Best Colleges to Become a CEO’’ visit: https://preply.com/en/blog/best-college-to-become-a-ceo/.
For more information, please contact Amy (amy.pritchett@preply.com)

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