10 Most Successful People Who Never Finished College

Higher education can be overrated. It's expensive, it doesn't necessarily stimulate critical thinking, and many people study for the sake of learning. While we don't recommend dropping out of college, there are times when education isn't essential to success, as you'll learn from these 10 people who prove college isn't necessary for success in life.

According to official statistics, if you go to college and get a bachelor's degree or higher, you are likely to earn much more. However, the usual norms do not seem to apply to the richest of the rich. Actually, Wealth-X Discovered in 2016, roughly a third of the world's billionaires did not have a bachelor's degree. Here are some very successful people you may not know who didn't go to college or dropped out as soon as they got there.

Lucky for you, these businesses are easy to set up, require little initial financial investment, and require very little technical skill. As a result, all the small business ideas in this article are low-cost online businesses that you can start from home.

Let's start right now.

10. Ellen DeGeneres

Condition: 370 million dollars.

Ellen Lee DeGeneres is an American comedian, television host, actor, writer, and producer. She starred in the comedy Ellen from 1994 to 1998, and since 2003 has presented her syndicated television talk program The Ellen DeGeneres Show. DeGeneres is one of the most popular entertainers and presenters in Hollywood history, but she has had to work hard. She enrolled at the University of New Orleans but dropped out after only a year. She worked odd jobs, ranging from cleaning lady to vacuum cleaner salesman to oyster cleaner (a source).

She performed in comedy clubs in the 1980s before reaching national attention on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. Ellen finally has film and TV prospects after nearly a decade of unsuccessful pursuit of her goal. This is one of the dropouts who never lost his good attitude, a true testament to what hard effort can get you to.

9. Brad Pitt

Networth: $300 million

Brad Pitt is a well-known American actor who has gained fame for portraying unusual characters as well as for his excellent looks. Just weeks before graduation, this famous actor left the University of Missouri to pursue his passion for cinema. Brad Pitt worked odd jobs in Los Angeles for about five years and also appeared on TV shows as a guest star.

Brad Pitt landed a role in Thelma & Louise in 1991, 9 years after entering university, which opened the door to future film appearances. However, it took Brad another two years to gain recognition for his roles in Where the River Runs and California. Brad Pitt's commitment to his passion has completely changed his career, as well as another college dropout who needs perseverance and perseverance.

8. Kim Kardashian

Net Worth: $1.8 billion.

Kim Kardashian is a reality TV star, businesswoman and social media influencer. She rose to prominence with the 2007 series Keeping Up with the Kardashians. She is also the owner of KKW Beauty, KKW Fragrance and SKIMS. Kim Kardashian and her family personify millennia of fame by bringing their luxurious lifestyle to the cameras for Keeping Up with the Kardashians and successfully starting a major company based on their personality.

Kourtney and Rob Kardashian are the only Kardashian and Jenner offspring to graduate from college. Kim attended Pierce College in Los Angeles and worked for the family business Dash when E! A reality TV program began and she quickly left both of them behind. Kim, who has become almost associated with the selfie, said that as she gets older, she'll want to continue her studies and possibly get a law degree.

7. Ted Turner

Net Worth: $2.3 billion.

Robert Edward Turner III is an American entrepreneur, television producer, media owner and philanthropist. He is best known as the creator of the Cable News Network, the first 24-hour cable news program. Turner didn't actually drop out of college. Instead, he was expelled from Brown University for having a companion in his dorm room.

Luckily, he was able to work for his father's lucrative advertising firm, which he eventually turned into the Turner Broadcasting Company, founding CNN, the first 24-hour cable news network.

6. Lady Gaga

Condition: 150 million dollars.

Lady Gaga is a Grammy and Oscar-winning singer, songwriter, actor and entrepreneur who, at the age of 34, is worth an estimated $150 million. As for her abilities, she was born with them. Gaga began playing the piano at the age of four and began performing open mics at the age of fourteen. Lady Gaga also dropped out of college.

Lady Gaga was one of twenty qualified conservatory students on the NYU arts campus when she was known as Stephanie Germanotta. Lady Gaga, on the other hand, gave up her music career after her second year. The singer-songwriter rose to fame with her debut solo album after working with two different musical groups, several years of playing in clubs and pubs, and several failed record deals.

Consistently one of the world's best-selling musicians, Lady Gaga is as successful as any other college dropout on our list.

5. Larry Ellison

Net Worth: $109 billion.

Larry Ellison is an American businessman who co-founded software company Oracle Corp in 1977. Under his leadership, Oracle has grown from a start-up with three programmers to the world's largest database software vendor and second largest business application vendor.

Ellison has had a busy life, from being born in the Bronx to a single mother, to buying his own Hawaiian island. In addition, he failed college twice. When his aunt died in her second year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he left.

He attempted to return to the University of Chicago School but was only able to complete one semester. He was able to start his own software development firm, Oracle, accumulating computer and programming skills in many positions. He became a technical legend.

4. Henry Ford

Wealth: $199 billion (in today's money)

Henry Ford was an American businessman, business leader and founder of the Ford Motor Company, and a major innovator of the assembly line method of mass production. With the breakthrough of his car company, the assembly line, Ford changed manufacturing and transportation.

But he did it without a fancy engineering or business background: at the age of 16, he left his family's farm and moved to Detroit to work as an apprentice in a machine shop. In 1896 he built his first car.

3. Steve Jobs

Condition: 250 million dollars.

This guy needs no introduction, but Steven Paul Jobs was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media owner, and investor. He is also the founder of Apple Inc. and Pixar. In many ways, the Apple genius was a renegade, including in schooling. He was interested in computers from an early age and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out after just one semester.

He eventually studied Eastern Spiritualism in India before returning to the United States and convincing his buddy Steve Wozniak to join him in starting a company.

2. Mark Zuckerberg

Net Worth: $89.6 billion

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is a media mogul, Internet entrepreneur and philanthropist from the United States. He is best known for co-founding social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms, of which he is chairman, CEO and majority shareholder. Zuckerberg left Harvard in 2005 to focus on building Facebook, which was not yet known as Facebook at the time.

While studying at a prestigious educational institution, he founded a network of social networks. Zuckerberg started developing web applications for his friends and family at a young age. Zuckerberg created the Zucknet communications application at the age of 12 using Atari BASIC.

Edward Zuckerberg, Mark's father, used Zucknet in his dental practice to communicate with his secretary. It was also used by the Zuckerbergs in their home. Although Zuckerberg excelled in literature and led the fencing team throughout high school, he was fascinated by computers. He developed an earlier version of the Pandora music program while in high school.

1. Bill Gates

Net Worth: $131.7 billion.

William Henry Gates III is an American entrepreneur, software developer, investor, writer, and philanthropist. He and his late childhood buddy Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft. The billionaire is known for dropping out of Harvard to found Microsoft.

Today, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation helps students make better decisions about where to go to college. When Bill Gates left Harvard University to found Microsoft in 1975, he basically coined the cliché of the college dropout millionaire.