Just work. Get a well rounded education in liberal arts so you know what to photograph. Or better yet, learn a marketable skill that you can fall back on, like plumbing or electrical work.

The best professional photographers hire good, hard working assistants regardless of where they went to school. Work for some good commercial shooters, drive a cab in Manhattan, shoot for yourself -- that's as close to a "formula" as I can think of.

There is nothing in practical photography that you can not learn from books, the internet, an occassional workshop or simply asking the world famous pretentious super artist, "How did you do that?" Really, you can learn the real-world stuff in less than a year - so just go do it.