page_title: University of Chicago
section_title: Alumni
hierarchical_section_title: University of Chicago / People / Alumni
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Milton Friedman
context_page_description: The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. It enrolled 16,445 students in Fall 2019, including 6,286 undergraduates and 10,159 graduate students. The University of Chicago is ranked among the top universities in the world by major education publications.
  The university is composed of one undergraduate college and five graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university's graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. Beyond the arts and sciences, Chicago is well known for its professional schools, which include the Pritzker School of Medicine, the Booth School of Business, the Law School, the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Divinity School and the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, as well as the recently launched Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown Chicago.
context_section_description: In 2019, the University of Chicago claimed 188,000 alumni. While the university's first president, William Rainey Harper stressed the importance of perennial theory over practicality in his institution's curriculum, this has not stopped the alumni of Chicago from being among the wealthiest in the world.
  In business, notable alumni include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Oracle Corporation founder and the third richest man in America Larry Ellison, Goldman Sachs and MF Global CEO as well as former governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine, McKinsey & Company founder and author of the first management accounting textbook James O. McKinsey, co-founder of the Blackstone Group Peter G. Peterson, co-founder of AQR Capital Management Cliff Asness, founder of Dimensional Fund Advisors David Booth, founder of the Carlyle Group David Rubenstein, former COO of Goldman Sachs Andrew Alper, billionaire investor and founder of Oaktree Capital Management Howard Marks (investor), Bloomberg L.P. CEO Daniel Doctoroff, Credit Suisse CEO Brady Dougan, Morningstar, Inc. founder and CEO Joe Mansueto, Chicago Cubs owner and chairman Thomas S. Ricketts, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
  Notable alumni in the field of law, government and politics include Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens; the lord chief justice of England and Wales Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd; President of the Supreme Court of Israel Shimon Agranat; Attorney General and federal judge Robert Bork; attorneys general Ramsey Clark, John Ashcroft and Edward Levi; Prime Minister of Canada William Lyon Mackenzie King; 33rd prime minister of New Zealand Geoffrey Palmer (politician); 11th prime minister of Poland Marek Belka; Governor of the Bank of Japan Masaaki Shirakawa; David Axelrod, advisor to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton; the founder of modern community organizing Saul Alinsky; Prohibition agent Eliot Ness; current Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot; the first female African-American senator Carol Moseley Braun; United States senator from Vermont and Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020 Bernie Sanders; former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz; and Amien Rais, professor and former chairman of the People's Consultative Assembly of the Republic of Indonesia.
  Notable alumni who are leaders in higher education, have emerged from almost all parts of the university: college president and chancellor Rebecca Chopp; current president of Middlebury College Laurie L. Patton; master of Clare College, Cambridge and vice-chancellor of University of Cambridge Eric Ashby, Baron Ashby; president of Princeton University Christopher L. Eisgruber; former president of Morehouse College Robert M. Franklin, Jr.; president of the Open University of Israel Jacob Metzer; and president of Shimer College Susan Henking.
  In journalism, notable alumni include New York Times columnist and commentator on PBS News Hour David Brooks, Washington Post columnist David Broder, Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, reporter and commentator Virginia Graham, investigative journalist and political writer Seymour Hersh, The Progressive columnist Milton Mayer, four-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Rick Atkinson, statistical analyst and FiveThirtyEight founder and creator Nate Silver, and CBS News correspondent Rebecca Jarvis.
  In literature, author of the New York Times bestseller Before I Fall Lauren Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth; Canadian-born Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature winning writer Saul Bellow; political philosopher, literary critic and author of the New York Times bestseller The Closing of the American Mind Allan Bloom; author of The Big Country and Matt Helm spy novels Donald Hamilton; The Good War author Studs Terkel; writer, essayist, filmmaker, teacher, and political activist Susan Sontag; analytic philosopher and Stanford University professor of Comparative literature Richard Rorty; cultural commentator, author, and president of St. Stephen's College (now Bard College) Bernard Iddings Bell; and novelist and satirist Kurt Vonnegut are notable alumni.
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caption: Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winner Milton Friedman in 2004.
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