25 Famous People Who Didn’t Go To College

A photo of Jay- Z by Alex Johnson – Wikimedia commons

25 Famous People Who Didn’t Go To College

Numerous renowned personalities throughout history have achieved remarkable feats without obtaining a higher education. The accomplishments of these individuals are a testament to the notion that formal schooling is not necessarily a prerequisite for success. Many of these individuals exhibited an unparalleled level of ingenuity, creativity, and entrepreneurial spirit, enabling them to carve out their own paths to prosperity.

The individuals who eschewed higher education and achieved great success are exemplars of autodidacticism, demonstrating an innate ability to acquire knowledge, often through self-directed learning. The capacity to absorb information, synthesize ideas, and apply them creatively to solve problems is a hallmark of intellectual curiosity and an essential ingredient for success.

1. Steve Jobs

A photo of Steve Jobs by Matthew Yohe – Wikimedia commons

Steven Jobs was an American entrepreneur, business magnate, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; a member of The Walt Disney Company’s board of directors following its acquisition of Pixar; and the founder, chairman, and CEO of NeXT.

In September 1972, Jobs enrolled at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He insisted on applying only to Reed, although it was an expensive school that Paul and Clara could ill afford. Jobs soon befriended Robert Friedland, who was Reed’s student body president at that time. Brennan remained involved with Jobs while he was at Reed. He later asked her to come and live with him in a house he rented near the Reed campus, but she refused.

After just one semester, Jobs dropped out of Reed College without telling his parents. Jobs later explained this was because he did not want to spend his parents’ money on an education that seemed meaningless to him. He continued to attend by auditing his classes, including a course on calligraphy that was taught by Robert Palladino.

2. Lil Wayne

Dwayne Michael Carter Jr known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record executive. His career began in 1995, at the age of 12, when he was signed by rapper Birdman, joining Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label. Regarded as one of the most influential hip-hop artists of his generation by XXL, he has often been cited as one of the greatest rappers of all time.

Carter was enrolled in the gifted program at Lafayette Elementary School. He later attended Eleanor McMain Secondary School for two years, where he was an honour student and a member of the drama club, playing the Tin Man in the school’s production of The Wiz. After matriculating to Marion Abramson Senior High School, Carter dropped out at age 14 to focus on his musical career.

3. Gisele Bündchen

Gisele Caroline Bündchen is a Brazilian fashion model. Since 2001, she has been one of the highest-paid models in the world. In 2007, Bündchen was the 16th-richest woman in the entertainment industry and earned the top spot on Forbes’s top-earning model list in 2012. In 2014, Forbes listed her as the 89th most powerful woman in the world.

4. Ellen G. White

A photo of Ellen G. White by an Unknown author – Wikimedia commons

Ellen Gould White was an American woman author and co-founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Along with other Adventist leaders such as Joseph Bates and her husband James White, she was instrumental within a small group of early Adventists who formed what became known as the Seventh-day Adventist Church. White is considered a leading figure in American vegetarian history. Smithsonian named her among the “100 Most Significant Americans of All Time”.

During her lifetime she wrote more than 5,000 periodical articles and 40 books. As of 2019, more than 200 White titles are available in English, including compilations from her 100,000 pages of a manuscript published by the Ellen G. White Estate, which is accessible at the Adventist Book Center. Her most notable books are Steps to Christ, The Desire of Ages and The Great Controversy.

5. Kendall Jenner

Kendall Nicole Jenner is an American model, media personality, and socialite. She is the daughter of Kris Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner and rose to fame in the reality television show Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Jenner began modelling at the age of 14.

Kendall Jenner opted not to pursue a college education, likely due to a variety of factors such as her successful modelling career, personal interests and priorities, and opportunities available to her in the entertainment industry.

It is possible that she consciously decided to prioritize her career in fashion and modelling, or that she felt that pursuing higher education was not aligned with her long-term goals or interests. Alternatively, she may have faced time constraints or other barriers that made attending college challenging or impractical.

6. Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, commercial astronaut and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which controls more than 400 companies in various fields today.

Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records which later became known as Virgin Megastores in 1972.

7. Ellen DeGeneres

Ellen Lee DeGeneres often referred to mononymously as Ellen, is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer, and producer. She starred in the sitcom Ellen from 1994 to 1998, which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award for “The Puppy Episode”. She also hosted the syndicated television talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show from 2003 to 2022, for which she received 33 Daytime Emmy Awards.

DeGeneres graduated from Atlanta High School in May 1976, after completing her first years of high school at Grace King High School in Metairie. She moved back to New Orleans to attend the University of New Orleans, where she majored in communication studies. After one semester, she left school to do clerical work in a law firm with a cousin, Laura Gillen. Her early jobs included a stint at J. C. Penney and waitressing at TGI Fridays and another restaurant. She also worked as a house painter, a hostess and a bartender.

8. Lady Gaga

A photo of Lady Gaga by SMP Entertainmet – Wikimedia commons

Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta known professionally as Lady Gaga is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her image reinventions and musical versatility. Gaga began performing as a teenager, singing at open mic nights and acting in school plays. She studied at Collaborative Arts Project 21, through the New York University Tisch School of the Arts, before dropping out to pursue a career in music.
After Def Jam Recordings cancelled her contract, she worked as a songwriter for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, where she signed a joint deal with Interscope Records and KonLive Distribution, in 2007.

9. Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She was a utopian feminist and served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. She has been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Her best-remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”, which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis.

Her early education was irregular, marked by attendance at seven disparate institutions, resulting in a mere four-year cumulative duration, culminating when she reached fifteen years of age. Her mother, distant and unaffectionate, sought to shield her progeny from the emotional turmoil she had suffered by proscribing any deep interpersonal connections or exposure to works of fiction.

In her memoir, “The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman,” Gilman recounted that her mother’s affectionate moments were reserved for moments when she believed her young offspring to be asleep. Despite the desolate and penurious environment of her childhood, Gilman unwittingly honed the intellectual fortitude she would need to succeed, through frequent visits to the public library and solo study of ancient cultures. Furthermore, the love for literature that her father exhibited was imprinted on her, and in later years, he provided her with a selection of books that he deemed would prove beneficial for her to read.

10. Sam Sloan

Samuel Howard Sloan is an American perennial candidate and former broker-dealer. In 1978, he won a case pro se before the United States Supreme Court, becoming the last non-lawyer to argue a case in front of the court before it prohibited the practice in 2013. In 2006, Sloan served on the executive board of the United States Chess Federation. He has run unsuccessfully or attempted to run for several political offices, including the President of the United States.

Sloan was born in Richmond, Virginia, and graduated from high school in 1962. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he became president of the Sexual Freedom League branch before dropping out.

11. Paul Keating

Paul John Keating is an Australian former politician and unionist who was the 24th prime minister of Australia from 1991 to 1996, holding office as the leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). He previously was treasurer of Australia in the Hawke government from 1983 to 1991 and deputy prime minister of Australia from 1990 to 1991.

Keating was born in Sydney and left school at the age of 14. He joined the Labor Party at the same age, serving a term as State President of Young Labor and working as a research assistant for a trade union. He was elected to the Australian House of Representatives at the age of 25, winning the division of Blaxland at the 1969 election.

12. Frank Langstone

Frank Langstone was a New Zealand Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister and High Commissioner to Canada. Langstone was born in Bulls probably on 10 December 1881. He was the fourth of five children to Charles Walter Langston, a vet, and Margaret McDermott, a seamstress. His father abandoned the family and not long after his mother died on 23 December 1890. His older sister Katherine took care of the family, thus financial pressures prevented him from having a proper education, though he was an extensive reader.

Eventually, he went into foster care where he continued self-educating himself before he became an apprentice blacksmith. In around 1906 Langstone moved to Masterton where he became the proprietor of the refreshment rooms at the railway depot and later ran a billiard saloon. On 24 April 1906, he married Agnes Clementine King, and they had five sons and two daughters.

13. Ferdinand Waldo Demara

Ferdinand Waldo Demara Jr. was an American impostor. He was the subject of a movie: The Great Impostor, in which he was played by Tony Curtis. Demara’s impersonations included a naval surgeon, a civil engineer, a sheriff’s deputy, an assistant prison warden, a doctor of applied psychology, a hospital orderly, a lawyer, a child-care expert, a Benedictine monk, a Trappist monk, an editor, a cancer researcher, and a teacher.

During this financially troubled time, Demara Jr. ran away from home at age 16 to join the Trappist monks in Rhode Island After two years, he was told he wasn’t suited to being a Trappist and was sent instead to a Brothers of Charity home near Montreal, Canada. He was then transferred to a Brothers of Charity boys home in West Newbury, Massachusetts, where he taught fourth grade. After running away from the Brothers of Charity after an argument with his superior, he joined the United States Army in 1941. There is where he drew the line of his education.

14. Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the Union through the American Civil War to defend the nation as a constitutional union and succeeded in abolishing slavery, bolstering the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy.

Lincoln was born into poverty in a log cabin in Kentucky and was raised on the frontier, primarily in Indiana. He was self-educated and became a lawyer, Whig Party leader, Illinois state legislator, and U.S. Congressman from Illinois. In 1849, he returned to his successful law practice in central Illinois. In 1854, he was angered by the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which opened the territories to slavery, and he re-entered politics.

15. Harry S. Truman

Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A leader of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 34th vice president from January to April 1945 under Franklin Roosevelt and as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to January 1945.

Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt’s death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.

After graduating from Independence High School in 1901, Truman took classes at Spalding’s Commercial College, a Kansas City business school. He studied bookkeeping, shorthand, and typing but stopped after a year.

16. Coco Chanel

Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” was a French fashion designer and businesswoman. The founder and namesake of the Chanel brand, she was credited in the post–World War I era with popularizing a sporty, casual chic as the feminine standard of style.

This replaced the “corseted silhouette” that was dominant beforehand with a style that was simpler, far less time-consuming to put on and remove, more comfortable, and less expensive, all without sacrificing elegance. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.

A prolific fashion creator, Chanel extended her influence beyond couture clothing, realizing her aesthetic design in jewellery, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product, and Chanel herself designed her famed interlocked CC monogram, which has been in use since the 1920s.

When Gabrielle was Jeanne, her mother, died at the age of 32. The children did not attend school. Her father sent his two sons to work as farm labourers and sent his three daughters to the convent of Aubazine, which ran an orphanage.

It was a stark, frugal life, demanding strict discipline. Placement in the orphanage may have contributed to Chanel’s future career, as it was where she learned to sew. At age eighteen, Chanel, too old to remain at Aubazine, went to live in a boarding house for Catholic girls in the town of Moulins.

17. Henry Ford

Henry Ford was an American industrialist and business magnate. He was the founder of Ford Motor Company and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. Ford created the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, and his conversion of the automobile from an expensive luxury into an accessible conveyance profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century.

Ford was devastated when his mother died in 1876. His father expected him to take over the family farm eventually, but he despised farm work. In 1879, Ford left home to work as an apprentice machinist in Detroit, first with James F. Flower & Bros., and later with the Detroit Dry Dock Co. In 1882, he returned to Dearborn to work on the family farm, where he became adept at operating the Westinghouse portable steam engine. He was later hired by Westinghouse to service their steam engines.

18. Simon Cowell

Simon Phillip Cowell is an English television personality, entrepreneur and record executive. He is the creator of The X Factor and Got Talent franchises which have been sold around the world. He has judged on the British television talent competition series Pop Idol (2001–2003), The X Factor UK (2004–2010, 2014–2018) and Britain’s Got Talent (2007–present), and the American television talent competition series American Idol (2002–2010), The X Factor US (2011–2013), and America’s Got Talent (2016–present). Cowell is the founder and sole owner of the British entertainment company Syco.

Cowell attended Radlett Preparatory School and the independent Dover College, as did his brother, but left after taking GCE O levels. He passed English Language and Literature and then attended Windsor Technical College, where he gained another GCE in Sociology.

19. Rihanna

A photo of Rihanna by SIGMA – Wikimedia commons

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is a Barbadian singer, actress, and businesswoman. Born in Saint Michael and raised in Bridgetown, Barbados, Rihanna auditioned for American record producer Evan Rogers who invited her to the United States to record demo tapes.

After signing with Def Jam in 2005, she soon gained recognition with the release of her first two studio albums, Music of the Sun (2005) and A Girl Like Me (2006), both of which were influenced by Caribbean music and peaked within the top ten of the US Billboard 200 chart.

She attended Charles F. Broome Memorial Primary School and Combermere School, where she studied alongside future international cricketers Chris Jordan and Carlos Brathwaite. As an 11-year-old, Rihanna was an army cadet in a sub-military programme, where the later Barbadian singer-songwriter Shontelle was her drill sergeant. Although she initially wanted to graduate from high school, she chose to pursue a musical career instead.

20. Jay-Z

A photo of Jay- Z by Alex Johnson – Wikimedia commons

Shawn Corey Carter known professionally as Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and founder of Manhattan-based conglomerate talent and entertainment agency Roc Nation. He is regarded as one of the greatest rappers of all time. He was the CEO of Def Jam Recordings and he has been central to the creative and commercial success of artists including Kanye West, Rihanna, and J. Cole.

Along with rapper AZ, he attended Eli Whitney High School in Brooklyn until it was closed. He then attended nearby George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School with rappers The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes, followed by a stint at Trenton Central High School in Trenton, New Jersey, though he did not graduate, dropping out during his sophomore year.

21. Cameron Diaz

Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including nominations for four Golden Globe Awards and a British Academy Film Award. As of 2018, her films have grossed over $3 billion in the U.S., making her the fifth-highest-grossing actress at the domestic box office. Diaz’s roles in comedies and romances cemented her as a sex symbol and a bankable star, and she was named the highest-paid Hollywood actress over 40 in 2013.

While still attending high school, Diaz signed a modelling contract with Elite Model Management at age 16 and appeared in advertisements for Calvin Klein and Levi’s. The following year, at age 17, she was featured on the cover of the July 1990 issue of Seventeen magazine. She also modelled for 2 to 3 months in Australia and shot a commercial for Coca-Cola in Sydney in 1991.

22. Katy Perry

Katy Perry photo by Toglenn – Wikimedia commons

Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and television personality. Known for her influence on modern pop music and her campy style, she has been referred to as the “Queen of Camp” by Vogue. Pursuing a career in gospel music at 16, Perry released her debut album, Katy Hudson, under Red Hill Records in 2001, which was commercially unsuccessful.

She moved to Los Angeles at 17 to venture into secular music and later adopted the stage name “Katy Perry” from her mother’s maiden name. She recorded an album while signed to Columbia Records, but was dropped before signing to Capitol Records.

From ages three to 11, Perry frequently moved across the country as her very strict parents set up churches before settling again in Santa Barbara. Growing up, she attended religious schools and camps, including Paradise Valley Christian School in Arizona and Santa Barbara Christian School in California during her elementary years. Her family struggled financially, sometimes using food stamps and eating food from the food bank which also fed the congregation at Perry’s parents’ church.

23. Whoopi Goldberg

Caryn Elaine Johnson known professionally as Whoopi Goldberg is an American actor, comedian, author, and television personality. A recipient of numerous accolades, she is one of 18 entertainers to win the EGOT, which includes an Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, an Academy Award (“Oscar”), and a Tony Award. In 2001, she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Goldberg described her mother as a “stern, strong, and wise woman” who raised her as a single mother with her brother Clyde (c. 1949 – 2015). She attended a local Catholic school, St Columba’s. Her more recent forebears migrated north from Faceville, Georgia; Palatka, Florida; and Virginia. She dropped out of Washington Irving High School because of dyslexia.

24. Robert Downey Jr.

Robert John Downey Jr. is an American actor and producer. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of commercial success later in his career. In 2008, Downey was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world, and from 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood’s highest-paid actor.

At the age of 10, he was living in England and studied classical ballet as part of a larger curriculum. He attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York as a teenager. When his parents divorced in 1978, Downey moved to California with his father, but in 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School and moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time.

25. Jim Carrey

James Eugene Carrey is a Canadian-American actor, comedian and artist. Known for his energetic slapstick performances, Carrey first gained recognition in 1990, after landing a role in the American sketch comedy television series In Living Color (1990–1994). He broke out as a star in motion pictures with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb and Dumber in 1994. This was followed up with Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Batman Forever (both 1995) and Liar Liar (1997).

Sometime later after his family moved to Burlington, Ontario, his family became homeless and lived together in a Volkswagen van while teenage Jim and his brother spent months living in a tent in Charles Daley Park on the Lake Ontario shore in Lincoln, Ontario. The family struggled financially, however, their situation started improving once his father found employment in the accounting department at the Titan Wheels tire factory in Scarborough

After the family moved back to Scarborough, teenage Jim started attending Agincourt Collegiate Institute before dropping out of school on his sixteenth birthday. He began to perform comedy in downtown Toronto while continuing to work at the factory.