15 universities that educated the world’s most powerful women

一月 1, 1990

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17 July 2014 | By Fiona Salvage

A fundamental role for the world’s top universities is the development of future global leaders – be it in politics, business or arts and culture.

So Times Higher Education put universities’ records to the test, by investigating which institutions were responsible for helping the world’s most powerful women to the top.

Of the 87 women on the Forbes World's 100 Most Powerful Women 2014 list who have at least one degree, 45 graduated from just 15 universities, of which all but two are US institutions.

Top of the list is Harvard University, whose own president, Drew Gilpin Faust, ranks at number 33 on Forbes’ list.

Only one institution is from Asia: the National University of Singapore, with three graduates – Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation; Chua Sock Koong, the chief executive of SingTel; and Ho Ching, chief executive of Temasek Holdings.

Europe’s only representative is the UK’s University of Cambridge with two graduates: Arianna Huffington, chair of Huffington Post Media Group, and Zhang Xin, the chief executive of commercial real estate giant SOHO China.

The US institutions are dominated by the Ivy League – Harvard, Pennsylvania, Cornell, Yale, Columbia and Princeton.

Our list, below, includes all higher education institutions with more than one graduate on the Forbes list.

Institution	Graduates	Degrees
Harvard University	13	14
University of Pennsylvania	7	9
Cornell University	4	6
Stanford University	4	5
Yale University	4	4
Duke University	3	4
Northwestern University	3	4
National University of Singapore	3	3
Georgetown University	2	3
University of Cambridge	2	2
Columbia University	2	2
Princeton University	2	2
University of California, Berkeley	2	2
University of California, Los Angeles	2	2
University of Wisconsin	2	2

While US institutions dominate the list, the top 10 most powerful women named by Forbes come from a far wider variety of institutions, with universities from Germany, Brazil and France joining the usual US Ivy League suspects. The most powerful woman in the world, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, attended Universität Leipzig, Germany. The table below shows the alma mater of each of the top 10 women.

Name	Country	Category	Alma mater/First degree
Angela Merkel	DEU	Politics	Leipzig University MSc, Physics
Janet Yellen	USA	Finance	Brown University Bachelor of Arts/Science
Melinda Gates	USA	Philanthropy/NGO	Duke University BSc, Computer science and economics
Dilma Rousseff	BRA	Politics	Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul Bachelor of Arts/Science
Christine Lagarde	FRA	Philanthropy/NGO	Paris West University Nanterre La Défense Master’s degrees in English, labour law and social law
Hillary Clinton	USA	Politics	Wellesley College BA, Political science
Mary Barra	USA	Business	Kettering University BSc, Electrical engineering
Michelle Obama	USA	Politics	Princeton University BA, Sociology
Sheryl Sandberg	USA	Technology	Harvard University BA, Economics
Virginia Rometty	USA	Technology	Northwestern University Computer science and engineering

Didn’t go to university

Beyoncé Knowles, singer and actor
Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the UK
Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of American Vogue
Shakira Mebarak, singer-songwriter, record producer
Gisele Bündchen, model, actor, producer and the goodwill ambassador for the UN Environment Programme
Folorunsho Alakija, founder and owner of Famfa Oil
Angelina Jolie, actor, film director, screenwriter, author and UN Special Envoy for Refugee Issues