Please take this with a grain of salt - I could only find it on Alternet[1] and I looked for the Gallup source they're referencing but shouldn't find it. The article is from December of 2011 as well.
In the top 1% of US households (those with an income above ~$550,000 a year according to this article, but I've seen lower-end figures ranging from $380-660k/yr), 72% have a college degree v. 31% of the lower 99%. "Nearly half" of the top 1% has some form of post-graduate education v. less than 1 in 5 of the 99%.
A lot of the 1% are CEOs, licensed professionals (JDs, MDs) and Wall Street executives, all positions the require baccalaureate or postgraduate degrees in almost every case.
By the numbers, it seems that having completed a high school diploma or less puts you in better standing than having completed just a degree (27% vs 23%), though a post-graduate degree is the clear winner.
So, it seems that if you are not willing to go through post-graduate studies (which, I assume, is primarily limited to the professional degrees you mentioned – MD, JD, etc.), you are slightly better off dropping out or not going to college at all in terms of achieving success as defined by the top 1%. That is actually pretty interesting data with regards to the subject of this thread.
In the top 1% of US households (those with an income above ~$550,000 a year according to this article, but I've seen lower-end figures ranging from $380-660k/yr), 72% have a college degree v. 31% of the lower 99%. "Nearly half" of the top 1% has some form of post-graduate education v. less than 1 in 5 of the 99%.
A lot of the 1% are CEOs, licensed professionals (JDs, MDs) and Wall Street executives, all positions the require baccalaureate or postgraduate degrees in almost every case.
[1] http://www.alternet.org/story/153341/10_fun_facts_about_the_...