The success of people without education: an exception or rule?

When Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was asked to deliver a speech to Harvard graduates, he sought advice from Bill Gates. "They also know that we have not received our degree, right?" - he asked. "Oh, that's the best part," Gates replied, "because they will actually give it to you."

This conversation between the two most famous people from Harvard can make you think that higher education is not important. The Internet usually encourages this view, telling how famous billionaires did without college.

The myth of mega-successful retirement from college

Although such examples are in fact, but they are not a statistical rule at all, rather an exception to the rules. The vast majority of successful people are graduates of Harvard, Princeton and Stanford.

Scientific approach

Heiner Reinerman from the Chemnitz Technical University and Jonathan Wye of the University of Duke conducted a study in which they found out how many of the richest and most influential people had graduated from college. They studied 11,745 successful career people from the US, including company executives, federal judges, politicians, multimillionaires and billionaires, businessmen and the most influential men and women.

They also calculated how many people graduated from the Ivy League universities, the best national universities and colleges, taking into account the most rating schools.

Statistics turned out to be the following: about 94 percent of successful people received higher education, and half of them studied at elite universities and colleges. At the same time, the attendance of the elite school varied widely. Of the members of the White House, only 20 percent studied in elite school institutions, 30 out of millionaires, and 80 out of those included in the Forbes list. For some unknown reason, of the senators, unlike members of the White House, the best universities in the United States attended 41 percent .

In order for statistics to be more clear, it should be taken into account that according to the population census and college students, no more than 5 percent of all American students go to Ivy League universities and other prestigious universities.

Is elitist education important?

This year, more than usual applications have been submitted to prestigious higher education institutions. Interestingly, according to research, in the income of those who entered the Ivy League, and those who study in less prestigious colleges, provided that the SAT ratings of the researched are similar, there is no significant difference, that is, Yale will not help to earn more, at least Least, in the long term.

Nevertheless, the data show that for students with the talent and motivation to get to the top of society in the United States, an elite college can be a good line in the resume and help in achieving the goal.

After reviewing more than 11,000 successful leaders, researchers said that they rarely encountered people who came from extremely poor or disadvantaged families. From this it can be concluded that social assistance to talented students can contribute to diversity among future leaders.

The issue of higher education

According to the generally accepted opinion, the way to "cream of society" may not be the only example of how to act. In other words, to get higher education or not is the choice of everyone. For someone, this is correct and will be the best option from the existing ones.

If you are an entrant and think whether to go to university, remember that successful people like Gates and Zuckerberg did go to college, although they did not finish school. That is, try in any case, it is important to understand if it's yours. Even if you do not strive for mega-success, then working on yourself and studying in a higher education institution can give a lot.

Perhaps in the future, the VO will not be so important for the work. But now they will take the graduate without experience, than yesterday's schoolboy without experience. Well, those who dropped their education and run the world are still an exception to the rules.