Asset management is perhaps the field in which it’s most widely assumed that one needs a degree from a highly selective college in order to have a successful career. We’re going to examine two ways of looking at whether this is true. First, let’s see where Wall Street analysts with the best track records did their undergraduate studies.
TipRanks provides ratings of the performance of stock market analysts, and below is a look at where those in their current Top 25 who did their undergraduate studies in the US got their degrees. [Note: 5 studied overseas and I was unable to locate the information for one, so only 19 are on this list.]. Of those in this elite group, 14 of 19 (74%) received their undergraduate degrees at non-MC25 schools, so it looks like there’s no monopoly on places to learn the basics about finance and investing. (Note: Click on the word “lists” in the menu for important notes about this section.)
TipRanks Top 25 Analysts Colleges Attended
UC Berkeley (2)
Stanford
U Maine
Linfield College
US Military Academy
U Michigan
Creighton U
Wesleyan
Syracuse (2)
U Illinois
U Louisville
Drexel
Virginia Tech
U Minnesota
Harvard
Fordham
Amherst College
(Sources: corporate websites and LinkedIn.com)
(last updated 4/26/2021)
Next, let’s take a look at the leadership teams for some of the most well-known companies in this sector. We may have one firm that is an exception here, with BlackRock seeming to have a preference (with their management team anyway) for those with degrees from MC25 colleges. This could just be a statistical anomaly, though. If we include all eight firms, 72% have degrees from non-MC25 schools, which is very much in line with the other professions we’ve examined. Opportunities abound for those from non-MC25 colleges in investment banking. (Note: Where the CEO is not listed, they did their studies outside the US.)
Goldman Sachs
Hamilton College [CEO]
Middlebury College
Princeton
George Washington U
Stanford
Yeshiva U
U Washington
JP Morgan Chase
Tufts [CEO]
Harvard
U Dayton
Georgetown
UC Los Angeles
Fordham U
SUNY
U Massachusetts
Wabash College
Fairfield U
Johns Hopkins
American U
Arizona State
Merrill Edge (Bank of America)
Colgate (Chief Investment Officer)
U Miami
Providence College
Morehouse College
U Massachusetts
Rutgers U
Boston U
BlackRock
Stanford (2)
UC Los Angeles [CEO]
U Pennsylvania
Binghamton U
MIT
UC Berkeley (2)
Princeton
Boston College
Colgate U
Brown
Harvard
Vanguard
Penn State (2)
Harvard [CEO]
Johns Hopkins
Fairfield U
St. Joseph’s U (2)
Bloomsburg U
Villanova
Hampton U
Georgetown
Wells Fargo
Dartmouth (2)
Colorado College
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Roanoke College
U Wisconsin
Georgetown
UC Berkeley
Smith College
Lehigh U
Bucknell U
Notre Dame
Charles Schwab
UC Los Angeles
Bentley U
Notre Dame
Penn State
Bates College
SUNY Geneseo
St. Michael’s U
U Akron
Arizona State
Fidelity
Fairfield U
Babson College
Hartwick College
Notre Dame
Union College
North Carolina State
Harvard
Rutgers
U Wisconsin
Santa Clara U
U Texas–Arlington
Bowdoin College
Assumption U
Boston U
Northeastern U
New Mexico State
(Sources: Corporate websites, linkedin.com, bloomberg.com, wikipedia)
(Last updated June 3 and July 5, 2021)