In spite of far too many stereotypes that portray college students as lecherous, beer-swilling slackers, in reality many of them show great entrepreneurial initiative. Starting up a business makes for a great way to earn a little extra money while still in school, and some have grown exponentially to become international conglomerates netting millions – if not billions – of dollars. The following 10 companies remain some of the more visible and well-known examples that sprung forth from the minds of college and university students. Some graduated, some did not, but in the end their companies became highly successful and netted them far more money than they could have imagined. And all of this came about because they pushed themselves to gather their resources together and provide services to certain niches in need of a few tweaks and boosts.

1. Facebook

One of the most insanely lucrative examples of college entrepreneurship in recent history, Facebook began in 2004 as an interactive directory for Harvard University students launched by Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. They applied their concurrent studies in computer science to bringing the faculty, staff, and students together in order to breed familiarity and perhaps provide networking opportunities for those about to graduate. It eventually swelled to include nearby colleges, then ones across the United States, then high schools, and then anyone over the age of 13. Now, 400 million active users take advantage of its 70 translations and 500,000 Platform applications – among many, many other features. The massive explosion in Facebook’s popularity resulted in Zuckerberg’s being worth $1.5 billion dollars by 2008. According to Forbes, this makes him the third-youngest billionaire since they started keeping track of ages, but the only one who did not earn the fortune through inheritance. At the moment, the company is not publicly traded on the stock market, although some major companies such as Microsoft have placed million-dollar investments in Facebook.

2. Dell

Originally founded under the nomenclature PC’s Limited, Michael Dell launched his computer empire in 1984 while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. With only $1,000 as his startup capital, he serviced those wanting to buy custom-build PCs directly rather than having to work with a middleman. This marked the first time the industry would offer such a perk to its customers, and Dell became successful enough to drop out of school and expand using $300,000 worth of contributions. By 1985, Dell was offering his own personally-designed computer system. Named the Turbo PC, it sported an Intel 8088 processor that ran at 8 MHz. It would also boast some of the more accessible costumer service of its time, providing consumers with no-risk returns, both next-day and at-home product assistance, and technicians willing to drop by people’s domiciles for repair work. This contributed greatly to the company’s eventual rise as one of the foremost leaders in the information technology industry. Today, Dell is a publicly traded company and as of 2009, its founder and current chief executive to ranks 25th on the Forbes List of World Billionaires. The same year, he netted around $1.995 million dollars as his salary and owned 13.10% of the company through stock. These stocks were worth $2,750.1 million in 2009, according to Forbes.

3. Microsoft

Microsoft stands out as the quintessential example of a business conceived while the founders still attended college, though Bill Gates dropped out of his studies at Harvard in order to pursue his plan alongside longtime friend Paul Allen. After moving to Albuquerque in 1975, the two got their start implementing the programming language BASIC for the Altair 8800 and developing microcomputers. They registered the name Microsoft in 1976, and by 1978 opened up their first international office in Japan. The following year, headquarters were moved to Bellevue, Washington and the company later restructured itself to sport Gates as the president and chairman of the board and Allen as executive vice president. In 1980, they released their very first operating system that featured the earliest version of Word – at the time called Multi-Tool Word. After working out an exclusive deal with IBM that packaged their PC-DOS operating system with every machine, Microsoft began soaring financially and productively. Forbes estimates that Gates was worth $40 billion in 2009, making him the wealthiest in the world that year.

4. Venus

Featured in full-page ads in Cosmopolitan and other fashion and women’s magazines, Venus and its affiliated clothing lines began in 1982 as Titan Bodybuilding, Inc. Founder Daryle Scott and four of his friends at Stetson University collected $5,000 each in order to launch a company that directly marketing and sold bodybuilding apparel and equipment. They eventually spread to offer exercise garments as well, and in 1984 began offering “mix and match” styles of swimwear through direct order via catalogue and, later, the internet. By 1999, they had begun selling all different kinds of women’s clothing and acquired WinterSilks in 2006. In 2007, they even served as the official swimwear sponsor of the Miss America Pageant. Jim Brewster currently stands as the President and CEO and as of 2010, 90% of the manufacturing is performed in the United States. Golden Gate Capital bought out 80% of the Venus empire to create Venus Holdings in 2006. Reality television personality Brooke Burke even designed and promoted her own like – Barely Brooke – through the swimwear giant, having initially established her modeling career with them.

5. Tripod.com

Internet staple and web host Tripod.com started its life as the brainchild of Williams College students Brett Hershey and Bo Peabody and their economics professor Dick Sabot. Rather than the familiar format of free and subscription web spaces, Tripod actually started its life as a paid service and magazine titled Tools for Life that came packaged with a number of different textbooks. Aimed at college students, it allowed them to network and create their own content while learning about how to adjust to life outside their parents’ homes. Résumé-writing services, tools needed to build a small personal website, and links to sponsored products and businesses relating to the needs of the collegiate set comprised the majority of the site when the domain name Tripod.com was first registered in 1994. However, it began offering free web hosting almost as an afterthought shortly thereafter, intending to compete with GeoCities and Angelfire. Lycos eventually bought out the site in 1998 for $58 million worth of stock, and today they offer free plans with a site builder, 20 MBs of space, blogs, and photo albums in addition to several different paid plans that allow for domain names and eliminate advertisements.

6. Napster

The controversial P2P file sharing service Napster started up in 1999, helmed by Northeastern University students Shawn Fanning. It allowed for the sharing of MP3 files between music fans enthusiastic about rounding out their collections without having to scratch them down through the usual channels. Fanning’s uncle, John Fanning, allowed the pair to run things from his home and placed 30% of the company’s control in Shawn’s hands. After enjoying widespread success, the company would file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002 amidst lawsuits filed by recording studios and their affiliated artists. High-profile musical acts such as Metallica, Dr. Dre, and Madonna all bore down on the exceedingly popular site, suing it into oblivion for copyright infringement. However, Roxio Inc. acquired Napster’s brand and logo at a bankruptcy auction, and electronics and media retail giant Best Buy bought it out for $121 million in 2008. Once a home for file sharing, it now faces a new life as a service for individuals to stream 25 free MP3s a month as a means of previewing albums before purchasing them or single tracks they find agreeable. After the success of Radiohead’s album Kid A following its leaking onto Napster servers prior to its official release date, many began seeing the positive promotional aspects of the site. Now, with 8 million songs to choose from, this service offers up a valuable tool for those hoping to check out artists before making the commitment to buy anything.

7. theglobe.com

Before Facebook and MySpace ever blew up into the social networking juggernauts the populace knows and (arguably) loves today, theglobe.com was providing space for users to meet others with similar interests and toss up some relevant customizable content to share – including chat rooms and games. Cornell University students Todd Krizelman and Stephan Paternot founded it in 1994 as part of their WebGenesis company, using an Apple Internet Server and 17 computer science students to keep everything running smoothly in the first year. It became incorporated in 1995 and went public by 1998, at the time boasting “the largest first-day gain of any IPO in history” with its 606% increase. At its peak, some estimate that Krizelman and Paternot were each worth in the vicinity of $100 million after expanded like a red giant to consume the Chips & Bits online store, the computer gaming site happypuppy.com, and Computer Games magazine. It also began offering telephony services as well. But in 2008 – 8 years after the founders had been ousted from the company entirely – the bubble of this dotcom eventually burst. Tralliance Registry Management currently owns the domain until 2015, currently using it to keep track of the former internet conglomerate’s SEC filings.

8. College Bellhop

MSNBC and Entrepreneur.com profiled the valuable and convenient College Bellhop as a relatively recent example of a business launched while its founders remained students. Boston University’s Assaf Swissa and Brandeis University’s Alan Ringvald conceived of the idea in 2002 when the latter could not afford to pay a professional cleaning service for his apartment. Knowing of other college students facing the same predicament, the two set out to offer economical solutions to keeping dorms and apartments organized and sanitized. They advertised strictly by word of mouth, and the fact that they only charged $60 to clean a 3-bedroom suite netted them 300 customers and a small staff by the time Ringvald graduated. Due to consumer demands, they added laundry and food delivery services in addition to the cleaning. By 2005, the small business was worth an estimated $1 million – almost unheard of for a company of its size in such a short span of time. Today, College Bellhop offers up its financially feasible assistance to students at 5 different campuses in the United States, working alongside residence halls to provide the most streamlined and coordinated service possible. Plans for expansion, if they exist, remain under wraps for the time being – though it makes sense that many, many more highly budgeted students would very much appreciate everything they have to offer.

9. FedEx

Unlike many other businesses on this list, FedEx did not entirely begin while founder Frederick W. Smith attended Yale University. Rather, it originated in an undergraduate term paper outlining how a delivery service could take advantage of emerging technologies and the inner workings of the Federal Reserve system to ship packages overnight. He worked out most of the logistics by pulling from his fascination with airplanes and aviation protocol, and the famous urban legend states that the economics professor for whom the paper was written failed him along with a note stating how such a venture would fail. Smith debunked this myth in a 2004 interview with BusinessWeek, stating outright that he could not remember what grade he got and an offhand comment about perhaps making “probably [his] usual C” grew into the hackneyed inspirational tale familiar to anyone ever forced to listen to a motivational speaker. Federal Express itself emerged in 1971, following Smith’s two tours of duty in the Vietnam War. Working from the premise he drew up while attending Yale, he began operating out of Little Rock National Airport before moving operations to Memphis International Airport two years later. By 1973, they boasted 14 airplanes delivering packages between 25 American cities. Now, FedEx ships overnight deliveries worldwide and is considered one of Forbes’s 400 Best Big Companies - they brought in $35.9 billion worth of sales in 2007. Smith himself continues to act as CEO, chairman of the board, president, and director, and Forbes gives his salary alone as $1,355,028.00 – though he also brings in an additional $1,306,439.00 in other compensations and $5,818,117.00 in options awards.

10. Google

Stanford University PhD students Sergey Brin and Larry Page drew from their experience working on the Stanford Digital Library Project and began compiling the research and plans that eventually resulted in the massive media conglomerate known as Google. They hoped to streamline how search engines and page rankings worked, creating a backrub page in 1996 and 1997. Originally operating under the domain name google.stanford.edu, the pair purchased the now internationally recognized domain name Google.com in 1997 and incorporated in 1998. A server running out of a Menlo Park garage indexed some 60 millions webpages only two years after sketching out their ideas in a research paper. Now an internet giant, Google offers far more than a quick, reliable search engine – maps, design tools, e-mail hosting, and microblogging services all round out their presence, among other features. As of 2010, Fortune magazine ranked it as the 4th best company to work for in terms of benefits and employee satisfaction, especially since it allows engineers to dedicate 20% of their time to any project they would like to work on.

None, if any, of these entrepreneurial spirits could have anticipated the far-reaching popularity and influence of their businesses when they first conceived of them in college. But because of their creativity, initiative, resourcefulness, and luck, they were able to forge (or begin to forge) for themselves financially lucrative empires before ever even finishing their higher education.