Most high school counselors want you to believe you have to go to college if you want to be successful in life. But that myth has been disproven time and again.
Some of the richest and most successful people in the country, and even the world, made their success without graduating college. Some of them went for a few semesters at most, and some never went to college at all. Here’s a list of 10 famous people that didn’t graduate college.
10 Famous People Without Degrees:
Mary Kay Ash attended college but dropped out after she got married. She started Mary Kay Cosmetics after being passed over for a promotion that was given to a man who she’d trained. The company started as a book Mark Kay intended to help women and turned into a business plan. With the help of her son and $5,000, Mary Kay Cosmetics was created. Mary Kay Inc. was named one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work for in America and one of the 10 best companies for women.
Halle Berry is an Oscar-winning actress who never went to college. Instead, she moved to Chicago immediately after high school to become a model and actress. She ranked #66 on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 in 2006 and reportedly made $16 million that year. Berry is also a spokeswoman for Revlon cosmetics and was able to command a higher advertising fee after winning an Academy Award.
Michael Dell, the founder and CEO of Dell, Inc., dropped out of college at 19. He first started his computer company in his college dorm room, later using company’s earnings and family loans to expand. In 2008, Forbes ranked Michael Dell #11 in its 400 Richest Americans. As of 2009, he has an estimated net worth of $12.3 billion.
Henry Ford never graduated high school, but went on to start one of the largest automobile manufacturing companies in the world, Ford Motor Company. He’s also credited as being the first auto manufacturer to use an assembly line, completely revolutionizing the way cars were produced. The assembly line allowed Ford sell cars at a lower price but the company kept making higher profit because sales volumes continually increased. Time called Ford one of the most influential people of the 20th century.
Bill Gates, a college dropout, has been named the richest person in the world by Forbes magazine 27 times. Bill Gates, who was 10 points away from a perfect score on the SAT, enrolled at Harvard College in 1973 only to take a leave of absence two years later to form a partnership with classmate Paul Allen. The partnership became known as Microsoft. In 2007, Bill Gates received an honorary doctorate degree from Harvard University. In 2009, Forbes reports Gates’ net worth at $40 billion.
Andrew Jackson, is most-known for being the 6th president of the United States, but was also a military governor, Army commander, an attorney, and a congressman – all without ever going to college.
Rachel Ray hasn’t had any formal culinary training, including college, but has several cooking shows on the Food Network, a talk show on NBC, several New York Times bestselling cookbooks, and her own magazine. She got her start teaching cooking classes to customers at Cowan & Lobel, a gourmet market in Albany, New York. The classes showed customers how to cook meals in 30 minutes or less. In 2008, Forbes.com ranked Rachel Ray #76 in Celebrity 100, reporting her earnings at $18 million a year.
John D. Rockefeller Sr., a high school dropout, became the first American billionaire and is said to be the richest man in history. He founded Standard Oil, the first multinational corporation, in 1870. The Supreme Court broke up the company in 1911 stating the company had violated anti-trust law creating a monopoly.
Steven Spielberg, is a movie director and producer. Spielberg was denied acceptance to film school and dropped out of California State University in Long Beach. He co-founded DreamWorks, a major film studio that’s produced several of the highest grossing movie hits and Academy award winning films. Spielberg ranked #205 on Forbes 2009 list of world billionaires with a net worth of $3 billion. He was later granted an honorary degree by USC in 1994.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social networking site Facebook #785 in the World’s Billionaires ranks #321 on Forbes’ list of 400 richest Americans. Born in 1984, Mark had an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion in 2008 and is the youngest person ever to appear on one of Forbes’ billionaire lists. He developed Facebook one year on summer vacation after borrowing money from Paypal’s co-founder Peter Theil. In 2008, Microsoft paid $240 million for 1.6% share of Facebook, leading us to believe the site is worth $15 billion.
But Wait! There’s More!
One thing you’ll notice is that there seem to be two types of people who make it big without going to college – those involved in the entertainment industry and those who start their own business. These college-dropouts and no-shows took risks and weren’t afraid to put their traditional plans on hold to pursue a dream. And, for them, it was a very profitable decision.
Don’t forget to read Why You Don’t Need a College Degree, and then check out our other College Planning articles.
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21 Responses
Great article. School doesn’t teach you financial literacy. That’s what I am trying to emphasize in my blog. Glad you and I have the same mindset.
4 of the people on that list went to college…
Lol, this is not to discourage kids nowadays from going to school!
This is totally ridiculous because the author didn’t even bother to do some research and I do believe that with his laziness, he definitely didn’t go too far in his life.
There are so many reasons for a person’s tremendous success and I really hate all the stupid, shallow articles saying that wow look at those famous people, they dropped out of college. That’s not the freaking reason why they are successful and you shallow writers make it sound like one.
1. Those people dropped out of college because they already dedicated 10,000 hours plus of hard-work before they entered college, so by the time they went to college, they already learnt everything they need to learn and wanted to find other challenges for themselves. So Hard-work, guys, it is everything, drop out of college or highschool as much as you want if you’re really work for that 10,000 hours of minimal requirements.
2. Some of those people comes from wealthy family and/or genetically intellectual families in which they were allowed to try out new technologies before anyone else (Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry&Sergei of Google).
3. Some of those people were born at the right time. Bill Gates was born at the dawn of IT era, Rockefeller – Fuel-based industries. Situations, contexts, conditions are all very important.
4. Persistence, disregard of impossibilities, creativity, competitiveness, diligence are amongst many other crucial factors for success.
So shut up when you start saying things like: “Oh, Bill Gates dropped out of college”
In response to Alex: I don’t necessarily think that when people hand out that phrase “Bill Gates dropped out of college”, that people are disregarding or disrespecting education or those with education. I would hope that most people bring up these people – are doing it for the same reason that I do: and that is in defense to people who treat those “below” them as unintelligent human beings or treat those without education with contempt or condescension. I made a list of some of these people to post on my Facebook for not just my friends to see, but also my family. Some members in my family, for years, treated me stupid and worthless and coined nicknames for me emphasizing how really brainless they thought I was. And after I dropped out of college and people started to get the idea that I wasn’t ever going back, they treated me even worse, saying things like “oh, Kelcy’s using BIG words now”, or walking away when I had some intellectual idea that I was merely excited about and wanted other people (that I esteemed to be knowledgeable) to bounce ideas around with. You DO have a point that many of these kids grew up with circumstances which may have highly contributed to their intellectual development or provided many of the means necessary to make it in their endeavors. But who is to say that one of these humans would be stupid, unproductive, non-influential people if they had been born into poverty? I was told by counselors, school counselors, family, and psychiatrists for years that I was “developmentally disabled” and that I was behind all my peers extensively because of the childhood that I had. I went through every abuse imaginable as a young child, even being fed alcohol many times as a toddler in my bottle by babysitters to make me “stop crying” or “go to sleep”. These things, can, and do – indeed, make someone developmentally disabled or delayed – at least for a long time. I still have to deal with many of the consequences of things that were done to me as a child. But I am not stupid or unintelligent.
The fact that I couldn’t return to school for (let’s say – very personal reasons – I’m not on a pity run), gave my family even more to torture me with. I hated how they treated me with such disregard or pity, it seemed – but I could not change how they thought of me. I realize now that I never can and won’t ever try to again. But I can raise my voice to the world about the successes of my predecessors, and how there are many great people in this world who may have never gotten a formal education. But when I say great I do not mean particularly, rich. Yes, many of these people were rich. But that is not the foremost success I like to focus on. That is why when I created my Facebook list, I also listed people who were born in poverty and those who never necessarily became rich, but did wonderful things for Humanity. But I just wanted to let ya know, when people say that – I know it can get annoying at times – they usually mean well.
I went to college and didn’t learn much but I did learn that Andrew Jackson was famous…. But for being the seventh president…. Which is also why the author of this article won’t make the list.
Whoever wrote this article obviously didn’t go to college either. Correction: one graduates FROM college, one does not graduate the college. Come on, get with it!
omg like half of these people DID go to college, but anyway of you dont go to college(6th form) you cant become famous, you need to get degree’s and a-levels and other qualifications. if you dont get any qualifications you CANT BECOME FAMOUS!!! thats just comonscence…sori if i spelt that wrong…. who ever the author is to this page i think you will need to look up these celebrities up again because they all did go to college!!
I’ve just finished a book tour of schools in the USA and discoved an entire army of young folks out there, ready to get going! My book, “The Scent Of A Dollar!” was written from the curbside, and not in any classroom… but I was pleased to see there were plenty of would-be-entrepreneurs waiting to talk after I left the stsge. If you’ve got guts and gusto, anything is possible. I’m a walking advert for people doing something with passion and a fire in the gut as the best way to get ahead. Mark Sheehan, Sydney, Australia
it gives a kind of lackadaisical thinking to the youngters when they read about this. in a developing country like malaysia, the problems of truancy is a very challenging situation for the teachers & parents alike & the trend has caused the students to become a failure at the end of their schooling. the excellent ones get into higher institutions & varsities but these failures? who’s going to ensure that they can survive without education? what can they become if they are not bookwise or even streetwise? education should come first.
An education is important to anyone, but it doesn’t completely make a person. You have to have that drive and be persistence to follow your dream. Don’t let others tell you that you can’t do it. You can achieve success in anything you desire as long as you stick to the goals that will get you there. It is easier when you have money but it is not impossible if you are poor.I came from a background of being poor but it did not stop me from making something of myself. I had alot of setbacks but I picked myself up and continued to push through. So can you, let no one take that dream from you, its not theirs its yours.
Short and sweet,
KNOWLEDGE IS POWERFUL AND WISDOM IS KING! Yes, these famous people “have” the know how to make money for people in their lives, but what about the wisdom to keep money and other people in their lives (relationships)”. Huuummmmmmmm….take a closer look at each one of their backgrounds???? They all are STILL struggling with “how to build and KEEP relationships with people (REGARDLESS OF THE AMOUNT OF MONEY THEY MADE OR HAVE). Money can’t teach you this, WISDOM CAN…and guess what? IT CAN’T BE BOUGHT.
GO TO COLLEGE YOUNG PEOPLE…ALL THAT SHINE AIN’T GOLD
There is no proper definition for education.It is not merely the delivery of information from teachers to students.The highest result of education is tolerence.The final result a children can acquire from education is the concentration of mind,unfortunately our school and college education can’t deliver this.Most of the students obtain it from their own experience.Everyone’s life is the sum total of their experience.In this context i remember the words of famous Philosopher Emerson”I have never let my schooling interfere with my education”
I earned my degree on the street corner, under the watchful eye of the bill-collectors. The classroom that once gave us access to jobs and a future path have dried up, sadly. So now the challange is to create places and cash-register ringing places on our own. For anyone with dreams of making money, or success, step up, and give your dreams a try! The worst any of us cando is, fail! But with each false-start, we get smarter…
This article is done mainly to motivate the downtrodden who are intimidated due to poor educational background.it will help others to think positively that education is not the only way to succeed in life.Thanks to the person who wrote this article.
Let’s discuss the here and now; the wavering path the majority of our college students have been fooled into taking. Speaking as a corporate employer a degree (unless a DR, P.A., or a specialized field) a degree means almost nothing. I gained something so valuable that a degree will not give you- experience. Corporations do NOT want some arrogant college kid that thinks that because he has a degree he will be paid accordingly. This could not be further from the truth. If you get an education you had better earn experience in the field working 40+ hrs a week. If you think that’s overkill, then you have a reality to slap you across the face when the time comes. I’m making well over 100k a year and I haven’t turned 26. Guess what else? I dropped out of college because someone finally decided to be honest with me and explained to me what really mattered. I’m now going back to school to finish my degree in financing part-time. Not because it will get me anywhere but because it shows I’ve gone the extra step. Get experience while attaining an education if college is a forced fed idea to you. You’ll be ahead of the curve in no time. Don’t be a statistic.
You can still be successful without guin college i mean just becus you dont go to college doesn’t mean your not gonna be nuthin in life i mean come on now if you tell somebody that they ant never gon be nuthin cus they didn’t go to college means you dnt really know you never knw what god has in store for you
Yes, Kelcy Sorensen! We are one in spirit.
Interesting article however the majority of the folks on the list were entrepreneurs who started their own companies. Am example is Steve Jobs, yes he did not complete college and neither did Woz. They started a company in their garage. These folks are a small number of the overall human race and the common thread is they went on their own and made their companies successful. If kids of today can do the same thing more power to them and the world will benefit from them. The most important part that the author left out was the majority of people do not have the opportunity to become wealthy by becoming a self made millionare. This is where the education becomes important. I was like these folks and decided that college was not in the cards. My decision was not made because I did not have the financial support. Long story short I have make a good living and work for a Fortune 100 Company however I am at my ceiling as far as career advancement because of the decision I made over 20 years ago not to complete a college degree. So those of you who are basing your decision on not pursuing higher education take this article with a grain of salt. It is much easier to finish formal learning when you are young and have it in your tool bag.
You forgot Rush Limbaugh.
So here are ten famous people that did not go to or complete college… and later went on to become famous…
Well assuming being famous is the objective of ones life on the surface this looks interesting. However compared to the massive majority of those that DID go to and graduate from a college , in light of that…well this makes no sense.
I could equally provide a list of 10 Bishops that don’t believe in a god, and probably ten astronomers that think Elvis lives on the moon.
It’s not at all effective to use the bell curve of ‘those that have no college education’ and go right to the less than 1% extreme to pull out examples…and then ignore the other 99% when the statistics whichever way you crunch them simply show ac college education and qualifications are a better start to a career, that college graduates earn much more than those with no qualifications and that somehow science is a bad idea… Doing so on ones blog on the internet is also frankly absurd! This blog is a wordpress application… my guess is the author of this blog hasn’t the first clue how it works.
I’m sure the lack of a college education is precisely what the developers of wordpress software depended on [rolls eyes]