Peter Thiel gives new class of students $100K to forgo college

Reminds me of that great quote I heard about Rhodes Scholars:<p><pre><code> A Rhodes Scholar: someone with a great future behind him. </code></pre> The same type of <i>lax logic</i> can be observed in the world's infatuation with the dramatic rise of Japan in the 80s, dubbed the "Japanese Miracle". This logic can be seen, repeatedly, throughout human history, with more recent examples being Communism in the 60s, the "Asian Tigers" of the 90s, and the "New Economy" babble of pretty much every single human period. Indeed, I'm seeing the same kind of statements about China and India as the "New World Powers".<p>Here's the reasoning (if you want to call it that):<p><i>Look at that growth rate! If this keeps up - sooner or later they'll be stronger than America!</i><p><pre><code> Sigh </code></pre> Start low enough (19 year olds anyone?), and any growth will look enormous (startups; this applies to you too). If they kept at the growth rate you claim we'd end up with India and China being greater in size and scope than the entire universe.<p><i>Look everyone! This kid got into MIT at 14 years old! Extrapolate that out a few years - he'll clearly be too awesome for us mere mortals to even comprehend!</i><p>I mean really, that's honestly how people think. They never check back on said prodigy 10 years later, who has become, just as one would expect, a moderately accomplished human being (reversion to the mean). Indeed many just plain flame out and disappear from sight (a sad fact).<p><i>Woo extrapolation! It works right? Come on, I mean it's not like these systems are complex at all!</i><p><pre><code> Statistics guy just shakes his head in complete disgust</code></pre>

I took Thiel's class at Stanford and I can tell you that Thiel is kind of a nut. He has a lot of very smart, very on point things to say -- however he is either gravely misinformed or pretty much delusional in his views of broader academia and its role in the proliferation of technology. You can see this tangibly from his founders fund investments in the bio sciences sector. Thiel views everything through the lens of incentives and grossly "overfits" this methodology to academic research arguing that the incentive to publish and be peer reviewed is responsible for the break down of truly ground breaking research. So instead he throws money at equally delusional (but somewhat qualified) PhDs in advanced fields for which he seems to have little grasp for. You see the same patterns in the people selected here -- ideas that sound "cool" as if from a sci-fi novel but tangibly very distant from real markets and profits.<p>I doubt his fund gets deal flow from serious silicon valley technology firms.

The posts on this thread remind me of that quote, "To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing."<p>I would bet good money that none of the critics below have done anything of much weight or significance.<p>There are two kinds of criticism, the kind that builds and the kind that criticize just to criticize.<p>The difference is in the intent.<p>Critics who build are giving feedback because they want the hearer to reach their full potential and be better, "You are almost there, but I see a few things that you could do to really take this to the next level. Don't settle. Really take this thing to the ground and do it right."<p>Critics who criticize for the sake of criticizing usually have nothing really useful to say. They don't care about the individual or institution they criticize. They usually have nothing of value to add. They are like spectators at a football game, who cheer or boo because it's fun. For these people, disagreeing is not done with the intent to help, but only with the intent to disagree. It's a waste of energy.

I think Thiel is grossly underestimating the value in college, especially for the students in this Fellowship. Thiel argues (elsewhere) that college is only worthwhile if you have a good idea of what you hope to get out of it. I completely disagree. For most people, college is the time that you discover your interests and figure out what you want to do with your life.<p>Even for these students, who seem to know exactly what they want to do, college is invaluable. It's not a coincidence that most of the major tech companies of the world (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc.) were started while their founders were in college. In many ways, it is the perfect incubator: you have plenty of domain experts readily available to talk to, a good supply of smart tech people, and no requirement that your startup make any money yet.<p>So, IMHO, Thiel is doing a disservice to these students by paying them to drop out.

The "dropout of college mania" will hurt America in the long run. The most talented young people are pursuing gold rush ideas instead of investing in deep learning. College leads to grad schools and grad schools created phd's. If something is broke along the chain, the result will be catastrophic in the long run.

But ironically if I want to work for him, I need a college degree :)

Curious if Peter Thiel has children. If he does, did they or will they go to college?

Its not clear from the article whether the $100k is shared across the group, or each individual gets that amount.<p>Also, why so few women (4/30)? I'm curious about what the criteria for selecting the group members was.

Yeah man. Get right to burning 60 hour weeks. You totally won't burn out.

Why is there an emphasis on foregoing college with this grant? Why not offer it to college seniors?

The average tuition cost is approximately $16,000 per year. Plus assume another $10,000 in living costs, books, etc. $26,000 in total for a complete cost of $104,000 in a 4 year period. Some people choose to go more expensive by going to a private college and some people choose to go a little cheaper by going public but this is an average. Also, a huge assumption is that its just for a 4 year period. According to the Department of Education, only 54% of undergraduates graduate within 6 years. So for the 46% that don’t graduate, or take 10 years to graduate, this is a horrible investment. But lets assume your children are in the brilliant first half who finish within six years (and hopefully within four).<p>Is it worth it? First, let’s look at it completely from a monetary perspective. Over the course of a lifetime, according to CollegeBoard, a college graduate can be expected to earn $800,000 more than his counterpart that didn’t go to college. $800,000 is a big spread and it could potentially separate the haves from the have-nots. But who has and who doesn’t?<p>If I took that $104,000 and I chose to invest it in a savings account that had interest income of 5% per year I’d end up with an extra $1.4 million dollars over a 50 year period. A full $600,000 more. That $600,000 is a lot of extra money an 18 year old could look forward to in her retirement. I also think the $800,000 quoted above is too high. Right now most motivated kids who have the interest and resources to go to college think it’s the only way to go if they want a good job. If those same kids decided to not go to college my guess is they would quickly close the gap on that $800,000 spread.<p>There are other factors as well. I won’t be spending $104,000 per child when my children, ages 10 and 7, decide to go to college. College costs have historically gone up much faster than inflation. Since 1978, cost of living has gone up three-fold. Medical costs, much to the horror of everyone in Congress, has gone up six-fold. And college education has gone up a whopping tenfold. This is beyond the housing bubble, the stock market bubble, any bubble you can think of.<p>So how can people afford college? Well, how has the US consumer afforded anything? They borrow it, of course. The average student now graduates with a $23,000 debt burden. Up from $13,000 12 years ago. Last year, student borrowings totaled $75 billion, up 25% from the year before. If students go on to graduate degrees such as law degrees they can see their debt burden soar to $200,000 or more. And the easy borrowing convinces colleges that they can raise prices even more.<p><a href="http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/dont-send-your-kids-to-college/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2010/02/dont-send-your-kids-to-...</a><p><a href="http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/10-more-reasons-why-parents-should-not-send-their-kids-to-college/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/10-more-reasons-why-par...</a><p><a href="http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/8-alternatives-to-college/" rel="nofollow">http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/01/8-alternatives-to-colle...</a>