The University of Southern California was established in the 1860s and has evolved into one of the best private universities in the country. They have an annual budget of over $5 billion and an endowment of $5.5 billion. USC is known for several major technological inventions, including the Domain Name System, antivirus software and DNA computing, among others.
Multiple Nobel Prize winners have emerged from the university, along with major actors who played in 25 of the highest-grossing films in history. Some of the famous alumni to graduate from USC include Neil Armstrong, Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow, and Forest Whitaker. There have also been more than 130 Olympic medal winners affiliated with the school.
Cornell University: $7.2 Billion
This private Ivy League university, located in upstate New York, was established in 1865 by Ezra Cornell, a philanthropist and businessman who wanted to provide a wide range of educational options. The campus is a beautifully scenic 745 acres, but it’s much larger if you count the Cornell Botanic Gardens (which spread out over more than 4,000 acres.)
Today, the university is comprised of seven graduate and seven undergraduate divisions, sprawled out over its Ithaca campus. They also have two medical campuses, one in NYC and one in Education City, Qatar. Nearly 60 Nobel Prize winners have been affiliated with Cornell, along with 55 Olympic medalists and 14 (living) billionaires. Ruth Bader Ginsburg attended Cornell, as did Bill Nye, The Science Guy. They have an endowment of just over $7.2 billion.
Rice University: $6.2 Billion
Rice University is a private research school in Houston, Texas. They turn out an impressive level of research and receive over $140 million annually for research expenses. Rice has a fairly small student body, compared to a lot of others on this list, with just over 7,000 in attendance last year.
Rice has close ties to NASA and subsequently has produced a high number of successful astronauts and space scientists. Two Rice alumni have received Nobel Prizes, and a number of them have become the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Dartmouth: $5.7 Billion
This prestigious Ivy League university is located in picturesque Hanover, New Hampshire. They were originally founded to educate the Native Americans in the English way of life – including Christian theology, though it’s evolved into one of the highest-ranked universities in the country.
There have been several notable alumni to graduate from Dartmouth, including 170 U.S senators and members of The House of Representatives, three Nobel Prize winners, 2 U.S Supreme Court justices and 10 living billionaires. Among the brilliant minds to hail from Dartmouth: Dr. Seuss, Daniel Webster, and Robert Frost.
Ohio State University: $5.2 Billion
Ohio State University is a public university in Columbus, Ohio. It was established in 1870 and was originally the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The name was switched in 1878, and now has a student body of more than 60,000 each year. U.S News & World Report ranked OSU as the 17th best public school in the United States in 2019.
OSU has their fair share of notable alumni, including multiple Nobel and Pulitzer Prize recipients. There have also been numerous Olympic gold medalists, not to mention all of the silver and bronze winners, to come from the university.