The Most Successful College Dropouts In History

A college degree can be an important gateway to employment, a career and a better standard of living. But a college degree does not equate to someone’s level of intelligence or talent. For those seeking the best workers or leaders, there is a plethora of intelligent, inventive people without degrees who should not be overlooked.

This list of college dropout billionaires is based on an annual ranking of the world’s wealthiest people compiled and published by Forbes magazine on March 11, 2009. The listed net worth represents the estimated value of assets less debt as of February 13, 2009.  College dropout refers to a person who has dropped out from a college or university before completing his/her degree. Some of the world’s most famous and richest billionaires (including the second richest man in the world, Bill Gates) are college dropouts. The combined net worth of these dropouts is USD 246 billion. This list is not exhaustive.

The average net worth of billionaires who dropped out of college, $9.4 billion, is approximately triple that of billionaires with Ph.D.s, $3.2 billion. Even if you remove the world’s second richest man, Bill Gates, who left Harvard University and is now worth $59.0 billion, college dropouts are worth $5.3 billion on average, compared to those who finished only bachelor’s degrees, who are worth $2.9 billion. According to a recent report from Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research, 20% of America’s millionaires never attended college.

Rank	Name	Image	Business	Dropped Out At	Age	Net worth
1	Henry Ford		Ford Motor Company	16	Dead	$188 Billion (in 2009 dollars)
2	Bill Gates		Microsoft	19	53	$59 Billion
3	Larry Ellison		Oracle	20	64	$27 Billion
4	Sheldon Adelson		Las Vegas Sands Corp.	19	77	$26 Billion
5	Larry Page		Google	Graduated University of Michigan	35	$18.5 Billion
6	Kirk Kerkorian		Tracinda	12	91	$18 Billion
7	Michael Dell		Dell	19	43	$17.3 Billion
8	Paul Allen		Microsoft	20	56	$16.0 Billion
9	David Geffen		Geffen Records	21	65	$6.5 Billion
10	Steve Jobs		Apple	18	53	$5.4 Billion
11	Richard Branson		Virgin	16	58	$4.4 Billion
12	Takafumi Horie		Livedoor	22	35	$3.6 Billion
13	Ralph Lauren		Ralph Lauren	20	69	$3.6 Billion
14	Subhash Chandra Goel		Zee TV	12	58	$2.3 Billion
15	Jerry Yang		Yahoo	Graduated Stanford	40	$1.9 Billion
16	Mark Zuckerberg		Facebook	19	23	$700 Million
17	Russell Simmons		DefJam	19	52	$340 Million
18	Matt Mullenweg		WordPress	18	25	$200 Million
19	Mahesh Murthy		Pinstorm & SeedFund	19	43	$200 Million
20	Jawed Karim		YouTube	21	30	$64 Million
21	Kevin Rose		Digg	21	31	$60 Million
22	Jaed Isaacman		United Bank Card	17	26	$50 Million
23	Kevin Sproles		Volusion	18	26	$17 Million
24	Shawn Fanning		Napster	19	28	$7.5 Million
25	Scott Wainner		ResellerRatings	20	26	$7 Million
26	Rob Benwell		Blogging To The Bank	18	23	$5 Million
27	Graham Langdon		Entrecard	19	21	$3.2 Million
28	Kristopher Tate		Zooomr	17	20	$3 Million
29	Aaron Levie		Box.Net	20	23	$3 Million
30	Reed Caldwell		ServInt	19	32	$2.5 Million