Unlike people that responded to you, I encourage you to do that. If your device is enclosed, disposition of heat generation is pretty important. Heat will generate on resistors, indeed, but if you put it a bit further from your regulator, you will split the heat more evenly and you will save a bit your active component. Of course at least passive cooling is nice to have on your regulator (dependable on voltage/current you are having). Keep on mind (thanks dim), that part of your current will be spent in voltage divider. If you are not ready to pay that price (dependable on your circuit or usage, sometimes it can be sufficient solution), you can try with distributing dissipation on serial resistor, as someone suggested (note that in that case you will tune voltage drop with value of that resistor).  Another (better and more expensive) solution would be cascade regulators.