Warren Buffett’s Kids Never Finished College. Here’s What the Billionaire Actually Wanted Them to Do Instead
None of Warren Buffett’s three children ever finished college. His daughter Susie came the closest — she was just three credits short of a degree before deciding not to continue. Her brothers, Howard and Peter, also left school without graduating. Buffett has joked about it more than once: “My children, if you pool their credits, you got a degree.”
The line is classic Buffett — dry, self-deprecating, and revealing. The world’s most famous investor has never treated a college diploma as a sacred requirement or the only legitimate path to a successful life. He has said repeatedly that college is not for everyone. Some people gain a great deal from advanced education. Others gain very little. The real question, in his view, is whether it makes sense for the individual given the time, expense, and potential debt involved.
What Buffett wanted for his own children was something different from the conventional script many parents still follow. He did not push them toward prestigious careers, elite universities, or any particular profession simply because that was what was expected of a billionaire’s offspring. Instead, he encouraged them to pursue work that suited their interests and abilities. He wanted them to find something meaningful rather than simply coast on family wealth or check boxes that looked impressive on paper.
In one of the clearest statements of his parenting philosophy, Buffett once explained: “I told my kids they don’t have to do anything… finish college, become doctors or lawyers… I told them to use their talents in whatever form they think will create the greatest net benefit to society.” He has also warned against the common parental mistake of using money to steer children into specific behaviors or careers. The worst thing a parent can do, he has said, is try to buy the outcome they prefer.
That approach produced three distinctly different lives.
Susie Buffett has devoted much of her career to philanthropy, education, and supporting children and families. She has long been associated with early childhood initiatives and runs the Sherwood Foundation, which directs significant resources toward education and community needs, particularly in Nebraska. She has recalled dinner-table conversations with her father about the limited career options once available to women — nurses, teachers, and secretaries — and noted that he never treated her differently from her brothers in terms of expectations or opportunity. The lack of pressure to finish her degree, she has suggested, made sense in a household that did not view the diploma itself as the finish line.
Howard Buffett took a path rooted in land and practical problem-solving. He became a farmer, conservationist, and philanthropist with a focus on agriculture, food security, and humanitarian work. He has served on the board of Berkshire Hathaway and has directed large-scale efforts aimed at improving farming practices and addressing hunger in various parts of the world. College did not suit him. He has described excelling in high school but struggling with the unstructured environment of higher education. After attending a few schools without completing a degree, he sought his father’s advice and eventually found work that aligned with his interests, including time at a Berkshire-owned company before building his own path in farming and philanthropy.
Peter Buffett chose music. He spent about a year and a half at Stanford before dropping out to pursue composing and performing. He has become an Emmy Award-winning composer and musician while also engaging deeply in philanthropy and social issues through the NoVo Foundation. Early in his career he received a modest inheritance in Berkshire Hathaway shares from his grandfather, worth roughly $90,000 at the time. He sold them to fund his musical ambitions. Looking back years later, when those shares would have been worth tens of millions, he has said he has no regrets. His parents’ consistent message, he has recalled, was simply to find something he loved doing.
Their careers could hardly be more different — one focused on early education and community foundations, another on agriculture and global food systems, and the third on music and social philanthropy. That diversity was not an accident. It reflected Buffett’s deliberate decision to give his children room to figure things out for themselves rather than prescribing a single approved path.
This philosophy sits alongside other well-known Buffett views on wealth and parenting. He has long argued that wealthy parents should leave their children “enough so they can do anything, but not enough so they can do nothing.” The children themselves have grown into the role of stewarding vast philanthropic resources. Together they oversee the distribution of the bulk of their father’s fortune through their respective foundations — one of the largest transfers of private wealth to charitable purposes in history. They have also spoken about growing up without the sense of entitlement that often accompanies extreme wealth. The family lived in a regular Omaha neighborhood, the children attended public schools, and they were not raised with constant displays of extravagance.
Buffett’s skepticism about treating college as universal extends beyond his own family. When selecting chief executives to run Berkshire Hathaway companies, he has said he never looks at where a candidate went to school. Great managers can emerge from famous universities, lesser-known institutions, or no formal higher education at all. A large portion of business talent, he believes, is innate. Real results and character matter more than credentials. He has pointed to examples ranging from successful Berkshire managers who took unconventional educational paths to friends like Bill Gates, who left Harvard to build a company that changed the world.
At the same time, Buffett is not anti-education. He holds degrees from the University of Nebraska and Columbia University and has spoken about the value of lifelong learning. He simply refuses to treat formal degrees as the only, or even the primary, measure of a person’s potential or worth. The best education, he has said, is investing in yourself — which may or may not involve a university campus.
For many parents today, the pressure around college remains intense. Rising costs, student debt, and the belief that a degree is the essential ticket to security can make the decision feel non-negotiable. Buffett’s example offers a different perspective. He did not dismiss education. He simply refused to elevate the credential above the individual’s fit, motivation, and long-term contribution. He wanted his children to do work that felt meaningful to them and that, in their judgment, created net value for society.
In the end, none of them collected a diploma. All three built substantial lives defined by their own interests rather than their father’s fame or fortune. Susie focused on children and education. Howard focused on land, food, and conservation. Peter focused on music and social causes. Their paths look little like one another, and that, according to their father, was precisely the point. He did not want them to follow an expected route. He wanted them to find their own.
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