Benjamin Guggenheim was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the fifth of seven sons of the wealthy mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim (1828–1905), and Barbara Myers (1834–1900), both originally from Lengnau, Aargau, Switzerland. The first member of his family to enter an institute of higher learning, he entered Columbia College in 1882, matriculating with the class of 1887. However, he found most of his course boring and dropped out after his second year. He also attended the Peirce School of Business (now Peirce College), then one of the most prominent business schools in the country. Guggenheim was Jewish.