These 13 Millionaires Made Their Fortunes Without Graduating High School

When researching the surprising financial habits of millionaires, you're not likely to find "drop out of high school" on that list of habits. Yet, several high-profile celebrities and business people have done just that, with at least one dropping out of school before entering high school. Although the reasons for doing so vary, these individuals still went on to become multimillionaires with large followings and massive respect in their industries.

According to Ramsey Solutions' 2024 National Study of Millionaires, 88% of millionaires graduated from college. Of that number, 54% graduated with doctorates or masters degrees. While that's a larger percentage than the 38% of the general population who do so, surprisingly, there's very little explanation for the remaining 12% of millionaires who don't graduate college. When you consider not even getting through high school, it's even harder to fathom becoming a millionaire. With 79% of millionaires in the U.S. never having to learn how to manage a large sum of money inherited — they never actually received one — and 80% of millionaires coming from middle- and working-class backgrounds, it stands to reason some millionaires don't graduate high school, much less college. Here are a few. 

Before Sidney Poitier made history as the first Black man to win an Academy Award in 1963, he was the son of two Bahamian migrants who sold produce in Miami, Florida, where he was born. Although raised in the Bahamas, Poitier was far from wealthy. He dropped out of school at 12 years old to provide an additional pair of hands to help support his poor family. He left for the U.S. at 15, landing in Miami before decamping for New York at 16 years old. Over the course of the next few years Poiter would enlist in the army during WWII, work in a psychiatric hospital, and as a dishwasher — learning how to read during the latter — before taking on janitorial work in exchange for his first acting classes at the American Negro Theater in New York City.

The rest is history, with Poitier going on to become one of the most successful screen and theater actors of his time. According to Celebrity Net worth, by the time of his passing in 2022 at 94 years old, Poiter's net worth was a cool $20 million.

Beginning her foray into modelling at 15 years old, Uma Thurman was already showing up in supporting roles in big movies like "Dangerous Liaisons"at 18 years old. Starring roles in films like "Pulp Fiction" and "Beautiful Girls" would cement her status as an A-lister, bringing Thurman the package deal of fame and fortune that so many dream of. While likely best-known for her starring role in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" franchise — earning $12 million for each of the two films — the movie that gave this actor their biggest payday to date is My Super Ex-Girlfriend at $14 million.

Although not her highest earning film work, according to the Hollywood Reporter, Thurman made $10 million for a film that was never made after film production company Handmade Films backed out on a film she was tied to. Thurman was supposed to earn $4.5 million and 10% of specific recipients for her starring role, and took Handmade films to court after they offered her a paltry $1.5 million for her time. They ended up settling for $10 million. Announced back in 2008, the film was never completed. As per Celebrity Net Worth, Thurman has earned an estimated $45 million over her career to date. 

Curtis Jackson aka rapper 50 Cent began hustling on the streets of South Jamaica, Queens in New York City at 12 years old. Graduating from high school didn't appear to be in the cards for the preteen drug dealer who would be arrested three times while in high school, his last time serving six months in a last stop bootcamp after drugs and a gun were found in a police search of his home. While Jackson didn't attend his prom, he did earn his GED, making the most of his time in bootcamp.

Jackson's star began to rise after underground single "How to Rob" caught the attention of the streets. Several horrible incidents, including getting shot by an attacker nine times outside his grandmother's home, getting dropped by his record label Columbia Records, and getting blacklisted by the music industry, would relegate him to making mixtapes in Canada — the last mixtape "Guess who's Back" wound up in the hands of Eminem in 2002. A meeting with Dr. Dre would cement a $1 million recording contract launching a platinum-selling career with over 21 million units sold. Aside from music, the rapper has delved into acting, boxing promotion, clothing merchandise, and film production. Product endorsements round out his resume that Newsweek makes him a near billionaire, though Celebrity Net Worth puts his value at closer to $60 million. Either way, it makes sense that diversification has served Jackson well, as it's one of the habits of the world's wealthiest people.

Drew Barrymore famously began her acting career at 11 months old, making her one of the few kids whose parents never had questions around how much allowance you should give your kid. With a net worth of around $85 million, Barrymore dropping out of high school at 15 years old doesn't appear to have affected her earning potential. Neither did a prepubescent stint in rehab at 13 years old or her emancipation from her parents at 15.

The film and television producer, star of hit films, real estate investor, and cookbook author has earned just over $43 million from her starring roles in films alone. Although her salary on her daytime talk show "The Drew Barrymore Show" isn't out in the open, a comparison of other popular daytime talks show hosts, including "The View" hosts Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, Whoopie Goldberg, and Joy Behar have them earning a low of $1.5 million to $8 million per year. Since Barrymore's name is in the title of the show, however, it's maybe more accurate to compare her to Ellen Degeneres of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," who as per inTouch, earned $75 million per year as the host in her latter years. Either way, assume Barrymore has long since achieved the wealth threshold that places you in the one percent a long time ago.

Before Quentin Tarantino was cutting films in the editing room, he was cutting his scholastic career short at Narbonne high school, dropping out at 15 years old to work at adult film theaters and write scripts in his spare time. He didn't do well in school, which created a rift between Tarantino and his mother, who at the time, sarcastically admonished him for his poor performance in school and his dreams of becoming a filmmaker — outside of covering debts to the IRS on her behalf, Tarantino has never given her any of his earnings, according to USAToday.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Tarantino has earned a whopping $120 million over the course of his filmmaking career, beginning with "Reservoir Dogs" and following all the way up to his most recent award winning "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." A product of the Blockbuster era, a copy of "Reservoir Dogs" or "Pulp Fiction" on tape should be coveted. As per Kiplinger, mont condition VHS tapes from the 1980s sold at auction have sold for as high as $50,000. So in about 10 years, a mint condition copy of Tarantino's hits from the 1990s might be like one of these VHS tapes of classic movies that are worth a ton of money, and would increase your net worth. 

Country star Toby Keith's massive fortune didn't just come from music, and as a reality tv and film star, hair and shoe line owner, and purveyor of multiple endorsements,Jessica Simpson seems to have employed the same strategy. After signing her first recording contract with Columbia Records, Simpson dropped out of high school. Like the aforementioned 50 Cent, she would attain her GED later, but not before platinum selling success as a recording artist in her own right. Spinning her fame into fashion and publishing, you can add her Jessica Simpson clothing line and New York Times best-selling memoir to her list of achievements.

According to Parade, Simpson has a current net worth of around $200 million. That said, a 2023 interview with Bustle revealed Simpson might need to stop some bad money habits that cause people to go broke while she still has her fortune. This, after spending $54 million to repurchase her Jessica Simpson Collection from Sequential Brands in 2021, and needing to borrow money from her mother — on a shopping trip to Louis Vuitton, Simpson's mother had to authorize Simpson's purchases.

David Karp may not be an A-list celebrity like most of the people on this list, but he's definitely someone who could advise you on what you really need to do to retire in your 30s. Karp, now 38 years old, dropped out of Bronx Science high school at the age of 15 to pursue his dreams of building a web development company. While spending the next three years being home-schooled, Karp would go on to co-found Tumblr in 2007. By 2010, 75,000 users had created more than 100 million blogs, and by 2013 Tumblr was earning $100 million in revenue. Conceived as a better alternative to WordPress, the popular platform's advertising strategy flies in the face of social media platforms today, with a desire to limit advertising on the platform as much as possible.

On May 19th, 2023, Tumblr was acquired by Yahoo! for a hefty $1.1 billion. Even though Tumblr isn't considered one of the social media platforms that make money for their creators anymore, according to Celebrity Net Worth, David Karp currently sits on a net worth of $200 million.

Some people have so much talent in one arena that they don't need to do anything else to earn their fortune, and if there's one thing Rock n Roll Hall of Famer and six-time Grammy-award-winning performer Billy Joel knows is arenas. Apparently, Joel leaped both feet first into the music industry after falling just one credit short of his high school diploma in 1967.

A highlight of Joel's career includes a decade-long run of monthly concerts beginning in 2014 at Madison Square Gardens. His performances for over two million people over the course of that residency earned $260 million in ticket sales. As per Billboard via Parade, Joel earned up to $3 million per show, with record sales and touring earning the lionshare of his net worth. If you want to book Billy Joel to perform for you, according to booking agency Celebrity Talent International, you can expect to pay within the range of $2.5 million to $6 million USD for the privilege. As per Celebrity Net Worth, Joel is worth a quarter of a billion dollars, all earned from making music.

Boxer George Foreman dropped out of high school in Houston, Texas at 15 years old, becoming a juvenile delinquent before joining the Job Corps where he earned his GED while learning trades like carpentry and bricklaying. In 1968, Foreman won his first big boxing match at the Mexico City Olympic Games, earning a gold medal, before turning pro in 1969. From there, Foreman began cementing his legend as a champion with a streak that continued until 1974, when he famously faced boxing icon Muhammad Ali in Zaire at The Rumble in the Jungle.

Although Foreman had apparently saved his money — he put away $5 million from his fight period between 1969 and 1977 — he lost most of it by 1987 on poor lifestyle decisions and bad investments. By the 1990s, Foreman was back in the ring. However, Foreman's real money maker was the Foreman Grill, which manufacturer Salton paid the boxer $138 million for the rights to use his name. Aside from sales of his own line of products, Foreman did a number of high-profile endorsements for other companies like Doritos and Kentucky Fried Chicken. If that wasn't enough, he was also a restaurateur. Although the legendary boxer passed away in March 2025, he left a legacy that, according to Celebrity Net Worth, included a net worth of $300 million.

The magic number 15 appears again for Katy Perry, who dropped out of high school at 15 years old to chase her dreams of musical stardom. Her start as a gospel singer as Katy Hudson in 2001 led to a more commercial pivot by the time her 2008 hit "I Kissed a Girl" blew up. This continued on with a string of Billboard-topping tunes which have spun out into voice acting on "the Smurfs" franchise, film cameos in movies including "Zoolander 2", and jurying duties on the top-rated American Idol. In 2019, Perry began earning an estimated $25 million per season.

Perry is a spokesperson and business owner, with several fragrances, including Purr in 2010 and Mad Potion, a mobile gaming app called Katy Perry Pop, and an investment in Popchips which diversifies her portfolio. Diversification is one of a few secrets the wealthy use to protect and grow their fortune, and something you should do to grow your net worth too. As per Celebrity Net Worth, Perry's diversification of her talents in music and business have earned her a net worth of $400 million. 

One of the most acclaimed actors alive, Robert De Niro, dropped out of high school when he was 16 years old. After departing high school, De Niro entered acting school, developing his chops for later movies like "The Godfather II" which got him his first Academy Award. The first of many recognitions, De Niro would go on to spin his success into restaurants like the upscale Nobu and Tribeca Grill, hotels and resorts like The Greenwich Hotel and Paradise Found — the latter an upcoming luxury resort on Barbuda — and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Film has been very good to De Niro, earning him over $136 million over his career. A rough divorce from his wife, initiated in 2019, led to the shedding of millions of dollars even with a prenuptial agreement that included $1 million for each year of marriage in every year De Niro earns $15 million or more, an apartment worth $6 million, $500,000 cash and half the value of the primary home they shared together. Still, as per Celebrity Net Worth, De Niro is still sitting pretty with an estimated net worth of $500 million.

During The Great Depression, Carl Lindner Jr. dropped out of school to help his family's Dairy business survive. He went from dairy delivery boy to a businessman in 1940 after he and his siblings obtained a loan for $1,200. This company, initially an ice cream shop, would become the United Dairy Farmers, a chain with almost 200 outlets across the Midwest. Not content with the dairy business, Lindner Jr. jumped ship in 1959, investing in a savings and loans company that would eventually include insurance products under his company American Financial Group. 

In 1984, Lindner Jr. acquired Chiquita Brands International, a company that, up until that year, had been funding paramilitary squads and supporting authoritarian regimes in Colombia. In 2001, Lindner moved on from Chiquita Brands International, while retaining his 20% minority stake in the Cincinnati Reds. According to Forbes, by the time Carl Lindner Jr. had passed away in 2011, he had amassed a net worth of $1.7 billion. 

Shawn Carter aka Jay-Z is, safe to say, well beyond the average net worth of people that fly first class, which is incredible considering the high school dropout's history of selling drugs while coming up in Brooklyn, New York's Marcy Houses public housing projects. Although Jay-Z began shopping his music around in 1995, it wasn't a slam dunk. He couldn't find any label interested in signing him. This would become the motivation the burgeoning rap star needed to co-found his own record label Roc-A-Fella with friend and confidante Dame Dash, who released his first classic album "Reasonable Doubt" in 1996.

Jay-Z's musical catalogue, including sales, tours, and merchandise obviously figure heavily to his net worth. However, as a businessman, Carter has made smart investments in companies like Uber and Block, a fine art collection that includes blue chip artists like Basquiat — Basquiat's paintings have sold at auction for as much as $110.5 million — and his interests in liquor brands Armand de Brignac and D'Usse. LVMH bought a 50% stake in champagne brand Armand de Brignac in 2021, while the sale of D'Usse to Bacardi in 2023 netted Carter $750 million. According to Forbes, Shawn Carter has a real time net worth of $2.5 billion.