Over 1 million Americans drop out of school each and every year, many of them will face a life of difficulties as a result of not having a decent education but there are some exceptions to this rule. Some of the World’s most successful people were indeed dropouts and they managed to use their misfortune to forge highly lucrative careers. Let’s take a look at some of the World’s most successful school drop outs.
TB Joshua
TB Joshua is a Nigerian pastor and prophet who never even made it through his first year of high school. Joshua instead opted to give bible study groups and following a divine heavenly intervention, he created the Synagogue of All Nations Church. The church started slowly but gradually grew at an alarming rate and today has over 15,000 member. Joshua has also gained worldwide notoriety for his accurate prophecies and his YouTube channel Emmanuel TV has amassed over 600 million views.
Aretha Franklin
The Godmother of soul dropped out of school aged just 15 after falling pregnant with her first child. The singer and been considered a child prodigy thanks to her singing voice but following the pregnancy, many thought that she would not reach her potential. Fast forward 60 years and Franklin has not only managed to forge out a highly successful career, she has added 18 Grammy awards to her name, sang in front of two Presidents at their inaugurations and has influenced hundreds of female singers over the years.
Mark Zuckerberg
Unlike the others in this list, Mark Zuckerberg actually completed school and earned a position at Harvard to study computer sciences. During his time at Harvard, Zuckerberg created a website called Facesmash which was a way for the guys in college to rank other girls in the university. After crashing the servers on campus, Zuckerberg realized that he had an idea that could work as a business and he continued his work ion Facesmash until he created The Facebook. Such was the popularity of The Facebook or later just Facebook, Zuckerberg quit college entirely and turned his idea into a multi-billion dollar business which was floated on the stock exchange and made himself millions of dollars.
Jay Z
Jay Z dropped out of high school aged just 15 in order to sell crack cocaine on the streets of Brooklyn. The young New Yorker had a passion for rapping and invested his drug money into his own record label. The young MC blew up and as the money came in, Jay Z invested even further into his business dealings. Now Jay Z not only has an outstanding music career, littered with multi-platinum albums and awards, he also boasts a clothing label, a sports agency company and his very own music streaming service. Not bad for a high school drop out and an ex drug dealer!