But there are exceptions to that rule.
On Tuesday, 21-year-old Palmer Luckey became the latest person to join the tech industry college dropout hall of fame. Luckey is the creator of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality headset that Facebook just bought for $2 billion.
He joins a long list of college dropout heroes including Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Michael Dell, Digg founder Kevin Rose, Napster's Shawn Fanning, and former Twitter CEO Evan Williams.
With high-profile people like venture capitalist Peter Thiel starting programs to encourage talented young entrepreneurs to skip college and start businesses, the list of young new successful college dropouts seems to be expanding, including the guy who just bought Oculus who leads Facebook.