Though guidance counselors and other educated adults may disagree, a high school diploma is not the only fast ticket to a rich, satisfying career. And among directors, neither Federico Fellini nor Quentin Tarantino finished high school. That dream came true for Lawrence Welk of North Dakota. New York Yankees Manager Casey Stengel did exactly that without a high school education. Of course you would be too late to cover these, but Peter Jennings managed just fine to cover them after he quit high school.
High school is certainly secondary to becoming a great writer or editor.
Faulkner deserves special mention here, as he distinguished himself by dropping out of both high school and college. As a World War I veteran, he entered the University of Mississippi without having first graduated high school. Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton, and Hemingway never bothered with college in the first place. And we shouldn't forget Harold Ross. Joining writers in a general failure to give higher education a shot are computer luminaries Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Michael Dell, along with media moguls Ted Turner and David Geffen.