Dropouts

Some, (okay, maybe most) of Columbia's most famous students never actually graduated. That's right, a Columbia education is SO good, that you don't even need a full 4 years to take the world by storm!

• Alexander Hamilton (joined the Revolutionary War)
• Lou Gehrig (signed a contract with the Yankees and bolted)
• Langston Hughes (from the School of Mines - that's right, one of the great American poets was a SEAS drop-out...)
• Eudora Welty (from the Business School, perhaps for obvious reasons)
• Jack Kerouac
• Alicia Keys
• Lauryn Hill
• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Isamu Noguchi (dropped out of CC's premed program to sculpt full-time)
• José Raúl Capablanca (World Chess Champion, 1921-1927; dropped out of the School of Mines after one semester because he spent too much time playing chess)
• Mortimer J. Adler (spread the gospel of the Core Curriculum to the University of Chicago and St. John's College in Annapolis. He didn't bother to take the Swim Test, and came back to teach Core classes with John Erskine.)
• Theodore Roosevelt (from the Law School, after being elected to State Assembly)
• Franklin Roosevelt (from the Law School, after passing the Bar)
• Utada Hikaru
• John Parke Custis, George Washington's stepson