These 19 Insanely Successful College Dropouts Prove You Don't Need A Degree

As the school year starts up again, the class of 2017 is heading off to college for the first time, and a whole crop of high-school seniors is beginning to consider where they'll go next year - or whether they should go at all.

College still pays off in the long run, but as tuition prices continue to climb, debt loads are higher than ever. And the first years out of school are extremely tough.

Some, like PayPal Co-Founder Peter Thiel, claim that college just isn't worth it in the age of startups. He's giving 20 bright young people $100,000 each to start a company instead.

Despite the fact that Thiel himself is a Stanford graduate, people who choose to follow his advice and drop out find themselves in pretty good company. Beyond Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, some of today's most successful businesspeople didn't graduate from college. Here are a few that prove a college degree isn't the only path to success.