Millionaire High School Dropouts

For some, the road to success begins with failure. While I don't advocate dropping out of school, for many individuals, completion of a formal education did not hinder success - it provided the impetus to succeed. Still others could not finish high school due to family obligations. But whatever the reason, here are some high school dropouts who made it. Of course for every high school dropout on this list, there are hundreds or thousands of dropouts whose lack of education prevents them from succeeding.

James H. Clark
Clark is not your typical high school dropout. He dropped out of high school after receiving a suspension and entered the Navy. His education didn't end though. He took nigh classes and was later admitted to the University of New Orleans, where he earned a Bachelor's degree and Master's degree in physics. He went on to earn a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Utah. From there he taught college and went on to form Silicon Graphics, Inc. Clark's next venture would be co-founding Netscape. With a net worth of over four billion dollars, Jim Clark has done quite well for a person who didn't graduate high school.

Peter Jennings
Most people know him as the anchor of ABC's World News Tonight, a position he held from 1983 until his death in 2005. Son of a prominent Canadian radio broadcaster, Jennings began his broadcasting career at age nine. Jennings failed the 10^th grade and dropped out of high school, attributing this to a combination of boredom and laziness. A few years later at age 26, Jennings became the youngest news anchor in American television history and the rest is history.

Dave Thomas
Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas, had been working in the restaurant industry since the age of 12. His family moved around quite a bit, and at age 15, while working as a busboy at a Hobby House restaurant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Dave's father announced that the family was moving again. Young Dave refused. He dropped out of high school and went to work full time in the restaurant, moving in with the family that owned the restaurant. It was here that he met one of the waitresses, Lorraine, who he would eventually marry. After working as a mess sergeant during the Korean War, Thomas went to work for Kentucky Fried Chicken. Working alongside Colonel Sanders, Thomas helped turn around several failing KFC franchises. In 1969, he sold off his KFC franchises and opened up his own restaurant - a hamburger joint in Columbus, Ohio named after his daughter, Melinda. Melinda had difficulty pronouncing her name as a small child, so her nickname reflected this: Wendy. Today, Wendy's Old-fashioned Hamburgers is the third largest burger restaurant in the country. In 1993, Thomas, concerned that his success as a high school dropout might influence teenagers to drop out of school, became a student at Coconut Creek High School and earned his GED.

The Wright Brothers
Neither of the inventors of the airplane received high school diplomas. Orville, the younger brother, dropped out of high school in his junior year to open a printing business. Wilbur completed his four years of high school, but due to a family move, never received his diploma.

Albert Einstein
With a name synonymous with genius, it's difficult to believe that Albert Einstein was a high school dropout. However, when Einstein's family moved from Munich to Italy, young Albert was left behind to finish high school. Rather than finish he left school a year later to rejoin his family. Instead of completing high school, Einstein planned to enter the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology directly. However, without a high school diploma he was required to take an entrance exam, which he failed. Einstein's family then sent him to Aarau, Switzerland to complete secondary school, which he did at age 17. Less than ten years later, Einstein would publish his theory of special relativity as well as the most famous expression in the history of science: E=mc².

While Einstein may not have been a millionaire, he just may be the most unlikely, most famous high school drop out in history.Source: Wikipedia