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solipsist comments on Why are Harvard's alumni so wealthy? - Less Wrong Discussion

11 Post author: JonahSinick 15 March 2014 06:47PM

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Comment author: solipsist 15 March 2014 10:48:56PM 18 points [-]

Harvard isn't just an undergraduate program. It has the first or second ranked undergraduate, law, business, public policy, economics, and medical school -- attend any of those, and you can get on this list.

Also Harvard's hegemony on this list is less of a reflection of its current position than its position decades ago, when the world's rich (who disproportionally are at the end of their careers) were educated.

Comment author: CronoDAS 16 March 2014 03:03:35AM *  3 points [-]

I was just going to say that! Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School are far more famous than a lot of similar institutions, and I've heard that the most famous (and well-paying) consulting and law firms tend to recruit heavily from them. "He went to Harvard Business School" is a pretty good answer to "Why should we pay a consulting firm a fortune to send us a young kid with no experience to tell us how to run our company?"

Comment author: JonahSinick 15 March 2014 11:16:04PM 0 points [-]

Thanks! Your first observation is a very important one that hadn't occurred to me – I assumed that it was the undergraduate program that was being discussed. Are you sure that your interpretation is right (e.g. based on reading the original paper) or is it just a best guess?

Also Harvard's hegemony on this list is less of a reflection of its current position than its position decades ago, when the world's rich (who disproportionally are at the end of their careers) were educated.

Right, this makes sense

Comment author: solipsist 15 March 2014 11:36:48PM *  6 points [-]

It is a guess based on this line:

Harvard's wealthy alumni, include academy award-winning actress Natalie Portman, who is worth $32million and George W Bush, worth an estimated $35million.

George Bush went to Yale for undergrad. He went to Harvard for his Master's in Business Administration.

Comment author: JonahSinick 15 March 2014 11:42:23PM 0 points [-]

Good point, thanks.

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