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I am a US Navy veteran. When I hit 25 years of service I had a decision to make. I had been in the procurement business in the Navy for many years. The powers in Washington that prevail decided I needed a sea tour and wanted to send me to a destroyer tender named USS Gompers as the Repair Office which is a senior billet and desirable job, if you want it. I did not. I had had enough of being away from family with three Vietnam tours under my belt.

So I had a decision to make. What to do with my life henceforth? Since I enjoyed furthering my learning I decided to go back to my alma mater, Purdue University, and earn a PhD. At this point, with a BS/MSEE and an MSM, I had to decide if I am going technical, that is pursuing a PhD in Electrical Engineering or one in Management. From my interfaces in the shipbuilding industry and all of the supporting industries to shipbuilding, I knew the shots were called by the white shirts in management in the C-suite, so I decided on Management. Management has many avenues, but one of them at Purdue was Strategic Management, the study of how managers set the path forward for companies. This is the path I choose. Since I had never had a course in Marketing, I decided to pursue marketing as my minor.

It turns out I could not have made better choices. The marketing path at Purdue required me to essentially meet the requirements of a PhD in marketing, minus the dissertation. My first job teaching at Butler University was MBA marketing.

So here I am now, approaching 40 years hence. You might ask, just what does a PhD do for you, aside from the satisfaction of obtaining one? I turned to Perplexity for some answers in data form.

I asked Perplexity “How many millionaires in the USA have PhDs?”

Based on the search results, we can infer the following about millionaires with PhDs in the USA: While there isn’t an exact figure provided for the number of millionaires with PhDs, we can draw some conclusions from the available data:

  1. Approximately 3.5% of the US population are millionaires, which is about 12 million people.
  2. About 1.2% of the US population holds a PhD.
  3. 52% of millionaires have a master’s or doctoral degree.
  4. 45% of Americans who pursue PhDs become millionaires.

Given these statistics, we can estimate that a significant portion of millionaires in the USA have PhDs, likely numbering in the hundreds of thousands to low millions. However, it’s important to note that while education is strongly linked to wealth, it’s not the sole determining factor. Other aspects, such as good financial habits, long-term investing, and managing spending well, also play crucial roles in becoming a millionaire. Additionally, the distribution of PhDs among millionaires varies across different fields, with some industries like technology, finance, and biotechnology having a higher concentration of PhD millionaires.

My wife was interested in how many millionaires do not have college degrees which is the converse of what I asked.

How many millionaires in the USA don’t have a college degree?

Based on the search results provided, we can infer the following about millionaires in the USA without college degrees: Approximately 12% of millionaires in the USA do not have a college degree. This conclusion is drawn from the statistic that 88% of millionaires graduated from college. To put this into perspective:

  1. There are about 12 million millionaires in the United States.
  2. If 88% of these millionaires have college degrees, then 12% do not.
  3. This means roughly 1.44 million millionaires in the USA do not have a college degree.

It’s important to note that while education is strongly linked to wealth, it’s not the only factor. Good financial habits, such as long-term investing and managing spending well, are crucial for becoming a millionaire. Additionally, some extremely successful individuals, including billionaires like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Michael Dell, dropped out of college but still achieved significant wealth.

The conclusion from all of this, the bottom line, is that almost 50% or half of USA PhDs are millionaires. So if you desire a reasonable shot at becoming a millionaire, earn a real PhD from a university such as Purdue. Nuff said.