Sometimes a dream, talent and perserverance are worth more than a degree. Here are some well-known millionaires who decided to leave school early to work towards their dream.
Jay-Z (Shawn Carter)
This high-school dropout grew up in one of Brooklyn’s roughest housing projects, dealing drugs before finding salvation in hip hop. In 1995 Carter took his first single to Def Jam Records, the company he ended up running from 2004 until 2007.
In 2008 he signed a 10-year, US$150 million deal with Live Nation that gave him control over his records, tours and endorsement deals with companies like Dell and Budweiser.
Carl Lindner
This billionaire dropped out of high school to deliver milk for his family’s dairy. In 1940 used a US$1,200 loan to open an ice cream shop with his sister and two brothers. In 1959 he left the business and started investing in savings and loans, and eventually insurance concerns, which he assembled under American Financial Group. In 1984 Lindner bought Chiquita Brands International (formerly United Foods) and ran it until 2001. The family dairy, called United Dairy Farmers, now has 200 ice cream parlors and convenience stores. Lindner’s current net worth US$1.7 billion.
George Foreman
This ubiquitous pitchman grew up poor in Marshall, Texas. He found a mentor, through Lyndon Johnson’s Job Corps program, who encouraged the 15-year-old thug to box. Foreman would eventually win a gold medal at the 1968 Olympics. His big pay day came in 1999, when he bagged US$138 million for selling naming rights to grill manufacturer Salton. He has since pitched brands like Doritos, KFC and Meineke, and has launched a line of environmentally safe cleaning products, a line of personal care products, a health shake, a prescription shoe for diabetics and a restaurant franchise.
Simon Cowell
The caustic judge earned US$75 million last year, thanks to his involvement with American Idol, Britain’s Got Talent, musical talent show The X Factor and SyCo records, his production company. The 50-year-old impresario dropped out of school at age 16 and landed a job in the mailroom at EMI. At 23 he left to start his own record label, Fanfare. Post-Idol, Cowell will shift his focus to a U.S. version of the The X Factor, where he’ll serve both as a judge and executive producer.
Gisele Bundchen
When Bundchen was 14 years old a modeling scout discovered her in a Brazilian shopping mall. In 1996 she debuted at Fashion Week in New York City. She earned US$25 million last year, thanks to contracts with Versace, Dior and other companies. She also has a line of sandals called Ipanema by Gisele.
A squash court at the Frank Kennedy Centre at the University of Manitoba had been used as a fighting ring for the universities own rendition of fight club.
The activity, in which people meet to take part in arranged bare-knuckle fights, was made popular by Fight Club, a 1999 movie starring Brad Pitt and Ed Norton that’s based on a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk.
The U of M caught wind of the secret fights when a gym member notified staff through an email, according to Janzen.
“They had seen somebody coming from one of the third-floor squash courts with, I believe, a bloodied nose,” she said.
At many college campuses smokers are feeling as though they’re being butted out! Pun intended…
According to Time Magazine:
At many colleges, smokers are being run not just out of school buildings but off the premises. On Nov. 19, the University of Kentucky, the tobacco state’s flagship public institution, launched a campuswide ban on cigarettes and all other forms of tobacco on school grounds and parking areas. Pro-nicotine students staged a “smoke-out” to protest the new policy, which even rules out smoking inside cars if they’re on school property.
Kentucky joins more than 365 U.S. colleges and universities that in recent years have instituted antismoking rules both indoors and out. In most places, the issue doesn’t seem to be secondhand smoke. Rather, the rationale for going smoke-free in wide open spaces is a desire to model healthy behavior.
Measures like creating smoke-free buffer zones–so people don’t have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into and out of school buildings–have had limited success. “We have a 25-ft. smoke-free boundary around campus buildings,” says Julee Stearns, health-promotion specialist at the University of Montana’s Curry Health Center. “But what’s 25 ft. to some people isn’t necessarily 25 ft. to others.” An all-out campus ban, says Stearns, removes the need for guesstimating. The university is considering such a rule, which could take effect as early as fall 2011.
The research is done and the conclusions are in- single-sex schools are bad for boys and good for girls.
New research shows that “boys taught in singlesex schools are more likely to be divorced or separated from their partner than those who attended a mixed school by their early 40s.”
In most cases diplomas are usually rewarded on a basis of grades, but at a Pennsylvania school, physical fitness matters too.
“Students at Lincoln University with a body mass index of 30 or above, reflective of obesity, must take a fitness course that meets three hours per week. Those who are assigned to the class but do not complete it cannot graduate.”
Older generations went to war to become adults while this comedian’s generation goes to raves to see if they can function while still being high the next day. In this video internationally famous comedian John Hastings tells WatchMojo.com why he’s scared for planet earth.
If only your school had been so straightforward.
From College Humor
There is so much to consider when shopping for colleges; the programs that are offered, where your friends are going and the campus are just some of the factors to consider when leaving home. We’re adding one more item to the already long list. Forbed reminds us that a big oversight is usually the cost of local housing. This is important to consider since the prices can range dramatically from town to town.
Here’s a list of the most and least expensive college towns.
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