That route usually requires some sort of high school diploma or equivalent. It's also exactly what I did. I don't regret leaving high school early because it was a real hellhole for me. For the record, it's also entirely possible to transfer to prestigious 4 year universities this route too. I'm planning on applying to Stanford and the like :)

Many of my friends also finished HS early or left in middle/high school to go to college. We're very proud to call ourselves high school dropouts. ;)

I also "dropped out" to go to college. If that's what you're doing, then great! But I think the earlier poster was referring to students who drop out and just get a low-end job somewhere. I suppose that's fine if that's really what you want to do, but how many high-school drop-outs really quit school out of strong desire to enter the food service industry?

Yeah, there are some people who do that. But I really doubt a lot of them ARE doing so because they want to, but because given multiple factors (family, past history, school..life in general, really) that it's very difficult to get a good post-HS education with the budget and resources they have for a career they want. Loans, grants and scholarships are hard to come across especially with the way the economy is now..and like I said, I dropped out of HS to go to a community college. My tuition costs less than my textbooks, and in total as a full time student with a 12 unit courseload now I'm paying less than $1000 for classes+books+materials+parking permits and all that this semester. But some of my classmates are struggling with financial aid and jobs because they can't even afford to pay for the classes alone and they are residents, not students paying insanely high out-of-state rates.

For what it's worth, I have considered entering the foodservice industry, but as an owner/operator and not a minimum-wage employee. In the right location with the right food, there's a killing to be made and it could leave me a fair amount of time to work on what I want (code code code ;) ). But again like you point out, it's a different situation. Most high school dropouts wouldn't be considering that.

On a related tangent, what's interesting to note is just how much of those units I'm taking now can transfer to the schools I'm applying to. Almost all of my classes transfer to UC (I'm in a california CC), which means for the same as one year's tuition at a UC like UCLA or UC Berkeley, I could spend a couple years at a CC taking the same classes, possibly even pay rent on an apartment and gas for the car, and then transfer. I'm seeing more and more students go this route because they're short on money even to go to a UC. Like I said, mine this semester is under $1000 and I could probably make a fair amount of that back by selling my textbooks, this academic year at UCLA is just under $10,000 for undergrad.

FYI, I found working retail more satisfying than high school. It makes you feel important, you feel like your actually getting something done, your getting paid, and if your one of rare people who actually would stick around in those environments, you'll get into management quick with a $30'000 annual job. I could see how it would be tempting for some people fed up with high school.