# Successful people who did not finish high school? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 30, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512 "2011-03-30T15:02:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/21 "2011-03-30T19:55:25Z")
[Demi Moore](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi_Moore) ---
**Author:** ![multimediac17](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/839c29/32.png) [@multimediac17](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/multimediac17)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/22 "2011-03-30T20:02:24Z")
Cher: > [@](#): > > Due to severe, undiagnosed dyslexia, she left Fresno High School at age 16. From her Wikipedia page. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/23 "2011-03-30T21:51:54Z")
On a related note , the only president who served since 1897 with no college degree was Truman. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/24 "2011-03-31T08:56:11Z")
I know someone who dropped out of HS, never went to college, but somehow got a PhD in math (and probably an MSc as well) and had a full career as a math professor. It is a long story with some surprises that he told me once. He also managed to talk his way into OCS and became a pilot in the navy during the Korean war. I guess they were really desperate (and he was VERY charming). ---
**Author:** ![SGT42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@SGT42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SGT42)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/25 "2011-03-31T13:13:30Z")
Former Brazilian president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/26 "2011-03-31T15:16:08Z")
Johnny Depp. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/27 "2011-03-31T15:28:14Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Johnny Depp. I was pretty sure he finished his high school equivlancy while on 21 Jump Street. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/28 "2011-03-31T15:33:20Z")
Mark Wahlberg never graduated HS. He even spent several years doing drugs and boosting people. Spent time in one of Boston’s prisons, before making a break in the music business. Today he’s worth about $150 million, primarily through his production business. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/29 "2011-03-31T16:07:40Z")
Add Al Pacino to the show biz list. He dropped out of high school, eventually got into Lee Strasbourg’s actor’s studio. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/30 "2011-03-31T16:17:20Z")
Ah. Here’s a list. Page 4 of this book, “Cracking the GED” provides a list of famous people who didn’t finish high school. It marks with an asterisk those on the list who got a GED: > **[Cracking the GED](https://books.google.com/books?id=xfWXszNrm_gC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false)** > > The GED has a fast-growing market, with more and more students taking the exam as an alternate way of earning their high school diplomas. The good news for test takers is that The Princeton Review knows exactly what material appears on the GED each... Predictably, most of the people on that list are entertainers. Whether you want to consider news anchors like Peter Jennings and John Chancellor “entertainers” is up to you. There’s probably a snide comment to be made about Harold Robbins. ---
**Author:** ![amarone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@amarone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarone)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/31 "2011-03-31T16:36:51Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > Ah. Here’s a list. Page 4 of this book, “Cracking the GED” provides a list of famous people who didn’t finish high school. It marks with an asterisk those on the list who got a GED: > > [Cracking the GED - Geoff Martz - Google Books](http://books.google.com/books?id=xfWXszNrm_gC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false) > > Predictably, most of the people on that list are entertainers. Whether you want to consider news anchors like Peter Jennings and John Chancellor “entertainers” is up to you. There’s probably a snide comment to be made about Harold Robbins. There are several British people on that list so I wonder how they are determining “did not finish high school”. There is no concept of graduating high school, nor is there a diploma. At the time relevant to the people on that list, the minimum school leaving age was 16. Most people did leave at that age, although it was possible to stay on for an extra 2 years to get ‘A’ levels. This was generally done only by people planning to go to college/university, which was a significantly lower portion of the population than today. So if saying that David Bowie did not finish high school means that he left at 16, that was perfectly normal at that time. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/32 "2011-03-31T16:47:51Z")
Good point. With a list that long, it’s not surprising that they are stretching things a bit. But it’s a starting point, and a lot of the named people are American. For them, the concept of “high school diploma” does make sense. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/33 "2011-03-31T20:07:10Z")
Jane Goodall got a PhD but never got a BA/BS degree. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/34 "2011-03-31T21:35:33Z")
Eddie Murphy did a bit back when he was on _Saturday Night Live_ about having dropped out of high school. ---
**Author:** ![SimonMoon5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@SimonMoon5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SimonMoon5)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/35 "2011-04-01T17:47:44Z")
CNN has a list of people who were successful but not only did they not graduate from high school, they didn’t even exist! [http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/01/successful.imaginary.friends.mentalfloss/index.html?hpt=C2](http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/04/01/successful.imaginary.friends.mentalfloss/index.html?hpt=C2) One of them did, nonetheless, graduate from college. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2011, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/36 "2011-04-01T18:45:44Z")
> [@amarone](#): > > There is no concept of graduating high school, nor is there a diploma. At the time relevant to the people on that list, the minimum school leaving age was 16. Most people did leave at that age, although it was possible to stay on for an extra 2 years to get ‘A’ levels. This was generally done only by people planning to go to college/university, which was a significantly lower portion of the population than today. > > So if saying that David Bowie did not finish high school means that he left at 16, that was perfectly normal at that time. note for Americans: British “dropouts” may have gone to the many private schools in England, which are _vastly_ superior to a typical American high school. I know British people who left school at 16, with a solid knowledge of Latin, basic calculus, and Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/37 "2011-04-08T05:10:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Justin Bieber > > Actually I don’t know, he’s 17 so maybe he has some kind of high school degree by now. There are probably a number of child stars who never got an official high school diploma, or only gained an equivalent based on questionable standards. I guess the OP is really about people succeeding after reaching adulthood. Slight hijack, but at least it’s been several days since anyone’s posted here. I thought about this thread and your post last night while sitting in a small bar chatting with a 21-year-old bargirl. Quite a looker, too. She went into graphic detail about how hot Justin Bieber made her and what she would like to do to him given the chance. If he ever holds a world tour, I shudder to think of the rip that will appear in the fabric of the space-time continuum should he get let loose here with his raging teenage hormones. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/38 "2011-04-08T13:05:00Z")
> [@from\_a\_to\_z](#): > > Colonel Sanders ([Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders#Early_life_and_career)) dropped out of 7th grade about 110 years ago, and lived on until December 1980. I hear when he died the had a “Kick the Bucket” sale… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512/39 "2011-04-08T15:05:51Z")
Charlie Sheen. Successful? He’s WINNING! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/successful-people-who-did-not-finish-high-school/576512.md?page=1)