While some of the world’s wealthiest are proof that you don’t have to graduate college to be a successful entrepreneur, this shouldn’t undermine the value of a good education. If we’re doing comparisons, the number of successful individuals with a college degree far outnumber similarly successful individuals who didn’t graduate.

In America’s corporate world, some of these learned individuals run the most elite of companies, earning big bucks while at it. These organizations often start out as privately held entities but soon enough, a huge chunk of them decide to go public.

Fair Share

2019 has seen its fair share of IPOs, thanks to the likes of Pinterest, Lyft, Levi Strauss, and the rest of them. Not all have gone according to plan though, but let’s not get into that just yet. The truth of the matter is that the executives at the helm of these companies are pretty good at their jobs, and one or two bumps along the way shouldn’t negate this fact.

Pinterest is just one of the many companies that have gone public in 2019

So, which schools did these top dogs attend? Renaissance Capital reports that many of the executives who’ve led their companies to IPOs in 2019 attended some of the best universities in the country. These institutions must be very proud of their alumni, don’t you think?

Chip Berg, chief executive Levi Staruss & Co. has something in common with ShockWave Medical’s Daniel Hawkins, and it isn’t that they’re both CEOs. Well, that’s one thing, but there’s another one. Both of these companies went public this year, and it just so happens that Berg and Hawkins attended Lafayette College. The liberal arts college did indeed create the foundation from which these two created their respective careers.

The institution both Berg and Hawkins attended

Pinterest and Change Healthcare also went public, with the former’s shares enjoying a 25% rise after the IPO. And although the latter’s shares sold below the expected price, the company still managed to raise around $800 million in its public offering. CEOs Ben Silberman (Pinterest) and Neil de Crescenzo (Change Healthcare) both studied at Yale, and you can be pretty certain that they have nothing but kind words for their alma mater.

You can’t mention Yale without Harvard coming into mind, can you? And just as the New Haven institution has produced top executives in this year’s IPO class, so has the Cambridge one. 10x Genomics’ Serge Saxonov and Anchiano Therapeutics’ Frank Haluska both went to Harvard, and looking back, they must be really proud of themselves that they did.

Holding Its Head High

UC Santa Barbara also holds its head high in regards to the “IPO Class of 2019” having been vital in laying the foundation for the future successes of the CEOs of Ping Identity, Lyft, and NGM Biopharmaceuticals. Andre Durand, Logan Green, and Stephen Gitagama, the respective top dogs of there three companies all attended the University of California.

MIT had to feature on this list

Did you think that we’d go through this entire list without mentioning MIT? Not a chance! Morphic Holding’s Praveen Tipirneni, Prevail Therapeutics Asa Abeliovich, and Personalis’ John West all attended the Cambridge, Massachusetts institution, and they’ve guided their companies to IPOs this year.

All the same, Princeton beats all other institutions, having produced 4 CEOs who’ve had IPOs this year. They include Christian Schade, Siclen John Van, Mac Armstrong, and George Scangos who are from Aprea Therapeutics, Dynatrace Holdings, Palomar Holdings, and Vir Biotechnology respectively.