The College Dropouts
Hall of Fame

You don't have to go to college to be a success. Even if you go for awhile, you don't have to graduate to be a success. Here are just a few of the people who have become famous and/or successful without graduating from college and/or high school.

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James Cagney, actor, song-and-dance man. Worked from the age of 14 as an office boy, janitor, package wrapper, and finally vaudeville dancer.

Sammy Cahn, Oscar-winning songwriter. Dropped out of high school.

Michael Caine, Oscar-winning actor. Dropped out of high school.

James Cameron, Oscar-winning director, producer, and screenwriter. Dropped out of California State University, Fullerton. Then took up street racing while working as a truck driver and a high school janitor, eventually getting a job building models for Roger Corman's New World Pictures.

Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S. representative and senator. Dropped out of high school at the age of 17 to join the U.S. Air Force, where he earned his GED. Later attended and graduated from San Jose State College.

Glen Campbell, singer, songwriter, actor. Dropped out of high school.

Jack Cardiff, cinematographer. His formal education was spotty because his family moved every week or so. He started in the movie business as a gofer and later graduated to camera work.

George Carlin, comedian, author 4-time Grammy winner. Never finished high school. As he noted, “The fact that I didn't finish school left me with a lifelong need to prove that I'm smart.” He also noted, “When you're a dropout and the culture accepts you and begins to quote you and teach your stuff in class and textbooks, this is my honorary baccalaureate.”

Kitty Carlisle, actress, panelist on To Tell the Truth. “I went to boarding schools in Lausanne. And then I went to school in Neuilly. I stopped school when I was about 16. I went to Rome to come out. I never got any degrees or anything, but I am better educated than people who went to college.”

John Carmack, founder of Armadillo Aerospace, cofounder of Id Software (sold 10 million copies of Dome and Quake games). At the age of 14, he was sent to a juvenile home after breaking into a school to steal an Apple II computer. Quit college early to become a game programmer.

Andrew Carnegie, industrialist and philanthropist. Elementary school dropout. Started work at the age of 13 as a bobbin boy in a textile mill. One of the first mega-billionaires in the U.S.

Scott Carpenter, astronaut. He twice flunked out of the University of Colorado.

Jim Carrey, actor, comedian. Dropped out of high school.

Julia Carson, U.S. congress representative, did not graduate from college. She was the first woman and first African American to represent Indianapolis.

Amon G. Carter, multimillionaire oilman, civic promoter, newspaper publisher, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Never finished eighth grade.

Maverick Carter, CEO of LRMR. Didn't finish his sports management degree at Western Michigan University. Instead, he apprenticed for a year and a half under a basketball senior director.

Tom Carvel, inventor of the soft-serve ice cream machine, founder of Carvel ice cream stores. Did not attend college. Before he began selling ice cream, he was an auto mechanic, Dixieland band drummer, and test driver for Studebaker.

Pete Cashmore, founder of Mashable.com. Founded the blog website when he was 19. Retired from active blogging three years later.

John Catsimatidis, billionaire oilman and real estate magnate. Studied engineering at NYU but dropped out to help a friend save his family's supermarket business. Owned 10 stores of his own by the age of 24 with $25 million per year in income. During college, he “did not study much. Would not tell my kids that.”

Bruce Catton, historian, editor of American Heritage, author. World War I interrupted his studies at Oberlin College. He tried twice after the war to finish college but kept getting pulled away by real jobs at a succession of newspapers.

John Chancellor, TV journalist and anchorman. Dropped out of high school.

Charles Chaplin, Oscar-winning actor, screenwriter, producer, director. Dropped out of elementary school.

Ray Charles, singer, pianist. Dropped out of high school.

Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel. Started the company when he was a high school senior. Never attended college.

Gurbaksh Chahal, multimillionaire founder of online ad networks Click Again and BlueLithium. Dropped out of school at the age of 16 to found Click Again.

Maurice Chevalier, Oscar-winning actor, singer. Dropped out of high school.

Lee Clow, global director of media arts, TBWA\Worldwide. A college dropout.

Winston Churchill, British prime minister, historian, artist. Rebellious by nature, he generally did poorly in school. Flunked sixth grade. After he left Harrow, he applied to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, but it took him three times before he passed the entrance exam. He graduated 8th out of a class of 150 a year and a half later. He never attended college.

Madonna Circonne, multimillionaire pop singer and actress. Dropped out of the University of Michigan and moved to New York City to pursue her career.

Joe Cirulli, founder of GHFC, a multimillion dollar fitness club company. After two years at Corning Community College, he decided to take a year off and travel around the country. Ended up following his girlfriend to Gainesville, Florida, where he started his live in health and fitness.

James H. Clark, billionaire founder of Silicon Graphics and co-founder of Netscape. Dropped out of high school at the age of 17 and entered the Navy. Later took night classes and attended the University of New Orleans, where he earned a Master's degree in physics. He eventually earned a PhD in computer science from the University of Utah.

Kelly Clarkson, pop singer. Got several college music scholarships but passed on them to move to Los Angeles to pursue a singing career.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens. See Mark Twain.

Grover Cleveland, U.S. president. Dropped out of school to help his family. Studied law while clerking at a law firm.

Eleanor Clift, reporter, Newsweek. No college degree. Went to night school for several years while working as a secretary.

Bram Cohen, developer of BitTorrent. He left the State University of New York at Buffalo for one year and then left. As he noted, “Were I to have to redo high school, I would just drop out immediately.”

Patrick Collison, software wizard. Dropped out of MIT during his freshman year to help two friends develop and eventually sell Auctomatic for millions of dollars.

Christopher Columbus, explorer, discover of America. Little formal education. Home schooled.

Christine Comaford-Lynch, founder of Artemis Ventures (venture capital firm) and Mighty Ventures. Dropped out of high school. Later also dropped out of the University of California at San Diego and UCLA. Dabbled as a model, trained as a geisha, spent years as a Buddhist monk, dated Bill Gates and Larry Ellison. She is the author of Rules of Renegades.

Sean John Combs, rapper, producer, fashion designer, entertainer, actor, and entrepreneur. Did not finish college. As he said in an interview in Time magazine, “I'm just not that type of person. As soon as I got out of the womb, I was ready to do this. Then there's other times—I'm not really high-tech computer savvy, and there's some things that I do have weaknesses with. I don't know if school would have made that better for me. I'm cool the way I've turned out.”

Sean Connery, Oscar-winning actor. Dropped out of high school.

Harry Connick, Jr., Grammy-winning pianist, singer, actor. Has sold over 25 million albums. At the age of 18, he left New Orleans to move to New York City. Did study at Loyola University, Hunter College, and the Manhattan School of Music, but apparently did not graduate.

Kevin Connolly, actor. Skipped college, moved to Los Angeles to live with a bunch of unemployed actors, and finally had success as an actor in Entourage.

Jackie Coogan, actor. Flunked out of Santa Clara University and transferred to the University of Southern California, but never graduated.

Jack Kent Cooke, billionaire media mogul, owner of Washington Redskins football team. Dropped out of high school.

James Fenimore Cooper, novelist. Was kicked out of college for a prank.

Noel Coward, Oscar-winning actor, playwright, director, producer, composer. Dropped out of elementary school.

Simon Cowell, TV producer, music judge, American Idol, Britain's Got Talent, and The X Factor. A member of Forbes 2008 Celebrity 100, he made $72 million in 2007. He dropped out of school at the age of 16.

James M. Cox, newspaper publisher, 3-term governor of Ohio, presidential nominee in 1920, founded Cox Enterprises. A high school dropout.

Gerard Craft, restaurateur. Dropped out of culinary school, saying “I never did well in the classroom—I got bored.” Then worked at a car wash and pool hall.

Joan Crawford, Oscar-winning actress, dancer. Dropped out of high school.

Davy Crockett, frontiersman, U.S. congressman. Less than six months of formal education. Home schooled.

Tom Cruise, actor, producer. Never attended college.

Roy Cullen, oilman billionaire. Dropped out of fifth grade.

Charles Culpeper, multimillionaire owner and CEO of Coca Cola. Dropped out of high school.

Dropouts with last names starting with D

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Drop out of school before your mind rots from our mediocre educational system. — Frank Zappa, musician, liner notes from the Freak Out album