So You Didn't Graduate College? Here Are 10 Successful People Who Didn't Either - LIFESTYLE,

You’ve heard it time and time again: if you want to get ahead in life, you have to go to college. But what happens when you don’t go to college? What are your other options? You can learn plenty by making your way in the world without degrees, of course, and here are 10 successful people who didn’t graduate college but made it big anyway.

1) Bill Gates

Bill Gates is one of the most successful people on this list and one of the richest. He dropped out of Harvard to start Microsoft, which he's still running today. Bill Gates might not have graduated college, but he's an exception to the rule that you need a degree in order to succeed. There are plenty of other examples of successful people who never finished their degrees! - Michael Dell: Founder of Dell Computers - Oprah Winfrey: Owner of her own television show and movie studio - Richard Branson: Founder of Virgin Airlines and 400+ more companies

2) Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Pixar Animation Studios, dropped out of Reed College after only one semester in 1972. He famously said, If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. It wouldn't have the dynamic spell-checker, which has become a part of every computer since then. And I certainly wouldn't have invented PowerPoint! To this day, his ideas live on through various patents filed by those who work at Apple.

3) Richard Branson

Richard Branson is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of the Virgin Group. He dropped out of school at age 16 to start his first business and has never looked back. Branson credits much of his success to luck but is not shy about sharing the advice he would give himself if he were a young man again. Don't be afraid of mistakes, he says, because we're all going to make them. If I could go back in time and tell my 20-year-old self one thing it would be don't worry so much - your worries are exaggerated, so just relax, Branson said in an interview with CNBC. Don't think you have to have everything right.

4) Mark Zuckerberg

After dropping out of Harvard in 2004, Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook in his dorm room with the help of classmates Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes, and Eduardo Saverin. Now worth $62.4 billion, the company has more than 1 billion active users across the world. In 2010, Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year for being one of the most influential figures on the planet. In 2015, he married Priscilla Chan, who is a medical student at Stanford University. The couple has pledged to give away 99% of their wealth to charity.

5) Walt Disney

Walt Disney dropped out of high school at the age of 16, but his later accomplishments show that this was not a mistake. His parents wanted him to go to art school, but Walt wanted to work in animation. In 1922, he got his first job as an illustrator for the Kansas City Star newspaper and went on to become one of the most successful animators of all time. He founded The Walt Disney Company with his brother Roy O. Disney and opened Disneyland Park in 1955. Today, it is the world's most visited theme park with more than 150 million annual guests from around the globe.

6) Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey is one of the most successful people in the world and has a net worth of $2.8 billion. Despite not graduating college, she was still able to become one of the best TV personalities in history and built a media empire around her name. -Elon Musk: Elon Musk is the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX and has an estimated net worth of $13.7 billion. 

-Drew Houston: Drew Houston co-founded Dropbox with Arash Ferdowsi, who left for Stanford before starting Dropbox full-time. He now serves as CEO with an estimated net worth of $3 billion according to Forbes.

7) Sir Tim Berners Lee

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is a British engineer and the computer scientist who was the inventor of the World Wide Web. He has been called the godfather of the internet. Berners-Lee was educated at Oxford University, but he never graduated. Instead, he went on to invent one of the most significant inventions in recent history. Another notable person without a college degree is S. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A. Cathy did not graduate from college either and instead started his business by opening his first restaurant in 1946 with his $5,000 life savings. Other successful people without degrees include Walt Disney (owner/founder of Walt Disney), Steven Spielberg (filmmaker), David Karp (founder of Tumblr), Kevin Systrom (co-founder/CEO of Instagram), and Steve Jobs (coastal entrepreneur).

8) John Lennon

John Lennon, the iconic singer of Give Peace a Chance and Imagine, was not formally educated. He dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue a career in music. In spite of this, he became one of the most famous musicians of all time. If you're an artist or musician and don't think college is right for you, just remember: You can do anything if you put your mind to it! Let's continue our blog post with more top ten successful people who never graduated from college. -Jay-Z: Jay-Z grew up in poverty, selling crack cocaine as a teenager on the streets of Brooklyn. At 17, Jay started taking night classes and eventually dropped out to focus on rap music full-time 

-Oprah Winfrey: Oprah Winfrey attended Tennessee State University but left without earning her degree 

-Charles Schwab: Charles founded what would become one of America's largest brokerage firms without any formal education

9) Diane Sawyer

Diane Sawyer is an American journalist who has had a very successful career. She started as a reporter in 1976 and then became the first female correspondent on ABC's World News Tonight. Since 1991, she has been co-anchor of ABC World News, which makes her one of the longest-serving anchors in U.S. television history. When she was 9 years old, her parents divorced and for some time after that, Sawyer spent time with both parents with no particular place to call home. Her mother wanted to help by working so hard at the restaurant where they lived so that they could save up enough money to buy a house but that never happened because there was always something that needed to be done around the restaurant. In high school, Sawyer would go out at night just to get out of the restaurant because it felt like it had become their home.

10) Anna Wintour

Anna Wintour is one of the most influential people in the fashion industry, and she didn't graduate college. She was an English major at the University of London but dropped out after two years to work for Harper's Bazaar as a fashion assistant. She began her career as a journalist and editor before becoming Editor-in-Chief at Vogue in 1988. Her success has been unprecedented, helping elevate the importance of magazine editors over that of designers or advertisers. In 2003, she became artistic director for Condé Nast, who owns all the magazines under her direction including Allure, Architectural Digest, and Bon Appétit.