Friends Don’t Let Friends Take Education Advice From Peter Thiel

The dean of the Stanford engineering school has a very good point. Peter Thiel's dropout scholarhips are very much a rigged experiment.<p>First he is going to select the brightest kids in the best schools. These kids already have higher than usual chance of success. Then he is going to give them 100k each. That will also increase their chances of success. Then he is going help them with advice and networking as much as he can which will also increase their chances of success.<p>This is all good and well. I have no problem with Peter Thiel helping a bunch of kids with money advice and networking.<p>But THEN he is going to say "look, my dropouts succeeded therefore education sucks therefore you are better off dropping out." A lot of kids will drop out when they are not the best in the class, when they do not have the help of Peter Thiel, and they will be fucked.<p>Thus, as a social experiment Peter Thiel's dropout scholarships are worthless. They do not show anything unless Mr. Thiel creates a control group by investing in kids that do stay in school or investing in kids that just graduated college.<p>Again this is usually not a problem (not all charity needs to be a social experiment) except for the fact that Peter Thiel obviously wants to use his scholarships as a social experiment. He wants to use them as something to criticize colleges and education with.<p>Peter Thiel is a very smart person (and ironically also very well educated) so he knows very well this is a rigged experiment. He designed it this way. He has an agenda, and this is to bring out some kind of libertarian utopia to the US. He thinks that academia stands in the way of this political goal and he wants to attack and destroy academia by destroying academic institutions. None of this is a conspiracy theory, he is actually pretty open about all of the above.<p>And again, I do not have a problem with that in general, any American has a right to be politically active, and to work to bring about what he believes are positive political changes to his/her country.<p>But again he is using a rigged social experiment in his fight against academia. As bystanders we should be very well aware that this experiment means absolutely nothing and resist his urges to conclude that it means that education is worthless.

Of course engineering school deans are going to think dropping out is a bad idea. The guy at Best Buy will also try to convince you to buy a warranty on your flat screen T.V.<p>There are definitely some good reasons to stay in school, but this article rubbed me the wrong way. Take for example, a couple of the arguments presented:<p>Argument: You get a lot of valuable social connections from being in school. Counterargument: You will meet others and learn from your peers by surrounding yourself by smart interesting people, but this doesn't have to be at a university. Why not connect with smart ambitious people of all ages that are working in your field? If the main value of elite colleges is that they screen bright students and bring them together for 40K a year, the students are getting ripped off.<p>Argument: Mark Zuckerberg was successful because he was vetted and educated by Harvard. Counterargument: This seems highly unlikely. No one used Facebook because they knew the developer was Harvard educated. And, Zuckerberg was an accomplished hacker before he came to Harvard.<p>Argument: Most successful entrepreneurs are not drop outs. Counterargument: That is because most people who try entrepreneurship are not drop outs. A better question is whether drop outs who start businesses are more or less likely to succeed. An even better question, is whether the same person is more likely to succeed if he/she drops out. Unfortunately, the last question is impossible to answer.

Wadhwa ends up helping Thiel's cause, not challenging it. He starts by proclaiming his bias and stating he "asked three [engineering deans] to help me quench this fire". But the deans try to challenge it with statements like "most will fail", "they aren't ready", "it would be a good thing if more [cohort] stayed in school", "it's unlikely they'll succeed", "getting an engineering degree reduces variance in your career..." Can those responses get more stereotypical?<p>He's right that students will take Thiel's message very seriously. His message is emotional, inspirational, anti-authority, and anti-establishment. And it's impossible to counter with those kinds of responses.<p>Also, the experiment that the Stanford dean describes is impossible to run, and the closest possible thing has already been realized. The people who want to drop out to take responsibility and start a venture are self-selecting. You can't just randomly assign roles like "you'll stay in school" and "you'll go to a startup" because the students would be emotionally invested in either decision. And many of them do already receive huge no-strings-attached financial assistance to stay in school.

<i>There is no control group. Why not pick 40 very bright young people and give half of them $100K to start a company and the other half $100K to stay in school and complete their education?</i><p>That would be a really interesting and exciting experiment. I wish someone would do it.

Context:<p>"Vivek Wadhwa is .. a Faculty and Advisor, Singularity University, Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School, Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University, and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at The Halle Institute for Global Learning at Emory University."<p>Wadhwa is a beneficiary of the college fees he is advocating paying. He's doing it under the guise of promoting education in general and has conflated Theil's argument with an anti-education argument.<p>The title of the article he's refuting is:<p>"Peter Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education."<p>One of Thiel's best points in the original article:<p>If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates? It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.

<i>Try getting a job at Microsoft, Facebook, or Apple if you don’t have a degree. There is almost no chance that you will make it past HR.</i><p>Bullshit. There are plenty of people at those companies that never got a degree but proved themselves in other ways (open source, made popular apps ... etc).

One thing that struck me about this debate is college athletics. In particular basketball and football as athletes in those sports tend to make money from day 1 in college (although the money is made for the college/NCAA). Despite the fact that there are minor league versions for both of these sports, they aren't well regarded.<p>It would seem like minor league basketball is what Thiel is advocating, yet no one is interested in going to it, nor recruiting from it. The best players are recruited from college, and that seems to be the way everyone likes it.<p>There are always the occassional superstars at a young age -- Gates/Zuckerberg...James/Bryant, but they are clearly rare and imitating them is almost certainly folly. No one would suggest recruiting directly from high school is a good idea on a scale of more than a couple of athletes per year (at most). Just thoughts.

While I think there's something to be said for Wadhwa's point in the context of the engineering field, in the larger context it seems pretty clear we've peaked in an education market bubble. Think about all those kids with liberal arts degrees. Heck, even law schools have seen a sudden drop in applications.<p>Along those lines, I can't be the only one who was surprised that one of his closing examples was Steve Jobs, the famous Reed College dropout. After all, Jobs has stated the importance of his dropping in to calligraphy classes and how it exposed him to the issues of typography, etc. I don't think I've ever heard Jobs talk about the importance of a visual arts degree from a prestigious university, however.<p>As for the argument that Microsoft or Apple won't look at applications that don't have degrees, well, yes. But in this forum how often have we read of startups choosing their original teams based on prestigious degrees? If you can make something new and useful, are you really worried about HR liking your resume or are you more concerned with finding ways to make your own company happen?

Vivek went to American Society for Engineering Education Engineering Deans Institute. I am not really sure what kind of response he was expecting other than the one presented to him.<p>Ask HN, is it really an unbiased article when you take their responses, and not for example, students or recent graduates ?

The whole argument of "bubble" is not about importance of higher education, rather, it argues that the cost is not justified.<p>As a side note, I applied Facebook for internship when I have taken no CS classes in my college at all, and they accepted me. I am not sure how "true" his last paragraph about applying job in Facebook without a degree would be.

Tom Katsouleas "It is during one’s undergraduate years that one discovers oneself, where one fits into the world and what it means to be human."*<p>Four years and $200,000 for a piece of paper and a false understanding of where you fit into the world.

The core issue is that a university education is necessary for a majority of people. It is a generalist education that fails to prepare people for any aspect of the work force. Most people should be going to vocational schools that in 1-2 years prepare them to be a novice in that field. Universities have done a great job of brainwashing to convince everyone that being a CS major at a third tier school is better than going to a 1-2 year software vocational program and starting to learn to program on the job right away(which hardly exist anyway).

I agree that a college education is undoubtedly important, especially in certain fields such as engineering, but these deans don't seem to pay any importance to the cost of education. It's going up at an unsustainable rate. If an undergrad education at any great school, Ivy league/Stanford or not, were about 40-50K for 4 years, then I doubt even Peter Thiel would argue against it (although I don't know for sure). But the problem is that the cost of attending such a university are growing at a staggering pace, whereas the cost of starting a software/internet based business in the same time frame has actually been going down at a staggering pace. The risk of failure may remain high, but the costs of failure keep getting lower, so you can't blame students for at least asking the question whether or not they should drop out. Sure you may argue there is an opportunity cost associated with leaving a university - but that keeps decreasing as the costs of attending that university increase. What happens when a 4 year education is $400,000?

I think the issue is not so much with education but schooling, of course being educated is essential to success but what isn't essential is spending $250K on an Ivy League degree. Peter didn't say 'be ignorant' he said spending $250K on an Ivy League education is a waste of money and that the asset is overpriced.<p>There is a price where Harvard makes sense, however $250K isn't it.

&#62;Of course, the other reason one should not take Peter &#62;Thiel’s advice is that the value of education is &#62;intrinsic and an end in itself rather than something &#62;to be measured by its career financial return.  It is &#62;during one’s undergraduate years that one discovers &#62;oneself, where one fits into the world and what it &#62;means to be human.<p>Sorry, but I just don't believe I need to go to a university to find out "how I fit into the world and what it means to be human." Isn't going out and actually building something useful for the world also a way to find your place?<p>A university education certainly has value, and may help you find "what it means to be human", but can the author really assert that it's the only or even the best way?

If we set aside for a moment the worthy and edifying nature of education and focus on today's cost Thiel has a legitimate point. In a world in which employment opportunities are shrinking taking on a huge amount of debt for a qualification which apparently doesn't afford job prospects and a salary which are in line with such debt is a widespread and unsustainable problem. And this is a problem which is becoming acute. Education costs continue to rise even as economic prospects become more precarious. Those of us who live in the US cannot count on continued economic global dominance to underwrite domestic full employment. This is a huge change we are barely starting to get our heads around.

The problems with higher education don’t solely rest on the universities; the consumers are equally to blame. I’m sick of people talking about going in dept 200k to get a bachelors degree. If you paid 40k or even 15k a year on liberal arts you’re a fool who deserves to be saddled with dept. Honestly, the liberal arts education the average student gets pales in comparison to what an intellectually curious person would get by visiting the library regularly, searching the web, and watching documentaries. There are plenty of ways people can drastically reduce the cost of education such as testing out of classes, going to community college (hell a reasonably ambitious student can take college classes in high school), etc. As for the meat of your bachelor’s degree, well that’s where university choice comes in.<p>Perspective students need to research colleges more. A lot of kids think that just because they did well in school and were told they were smart their whole life that they have to go to an Ivy League school or some other very expensive prestigious school. There are many universities that offer an as good or better education for a much better value. Sure Harvard may employ people who are titans in their field, Nobel Prize winners and the like, but unless you are going to Grad school there it won’t affect you any. They won’t be teaching you, TAs will. And even if they did, they would be teaching you out of the same text books as the adjunct professors at your local community college uses. Do people think that if they go to undergrad at Princeton a Nobel Prize winning professor will personally mentor them or something?<p>I’m currently a senior taking a break from cramming for finals, and when I graduate I will graduate with a degree from a school that has high job placement in my field (CS) and that I feel has prepared me very well. And I will do it without going in to dept at all. Not a dime. I’m going to be able to do this because I went to community college for my liberal arts, tested out of classes, lived off campus, worked part time, took advantage of transfer scholarships for high GPA, grants, tax rebates, etc. In short I PLANNED things out and worked hard in all aspects of my life not just school. I know countless students who will be graduating with ridiculous debts because they didn’t plan at all. They got out of high school and just hopped in to college never thinking about the dept for a minute. What’s really sad is that many of them will have degrees that aren’t worth shit unless they go to grad school, or they will get jobs that pay horribly for the amount of initial investment. I’m not as pessimistic about higher education as a lot of people on here, but I definitely have my issues with it. I just think that people are diverting a lot of the blame from the students/parents/mentors to the colleges.

I tend to agree that there is an education bubble, just not in engineering or the sciences.<p>Any English or history major has access to the same loans that an engineering or biology major has, but on average, they are likely to make far less in income. Should <i>what</i> you are studying be a factor in loan applications? I think so.<p>Another side of the same coin on income inequality (pure numbers, not social justice) is that most universities (that I am aware of) charge the same for all degrees, regardless of earning potential. Someone majoring in elementary education will almost always have a smaller return on investment than an engineering major.

If Thiel's actions cause smart students to drop out of school and fail at starting their own companies, that will be great because then the companies that hire the failed dropouts will have to develop non-school-related methods for discriminating between the good ones and the bad ones. If those non-school-related methods become good enough, they'll start using them on graduates as well, and then there will be actual pressure on schools to educate students effectively (along with the option of teaching yourself instead of going to school if that fits your style better).

I'm not sure how surprising it is that academics are defending academia. Plummer's response is sensible--yes, it's a rigged experiment. On the other hand, if you genuinely think college is a bad deal, paying people to go to college is perverse. Thiel isn't so much making a bet as helping people act as if his bet has already paid off.<p>Katsouleas just makes a lame rhetorical point. Surely he can do better.<p>Eisenstein speaks the truth: college is not always the best option. "Getting an engineering degree reduces the variance in your career outcomes. You might not get the billions, but you also won’t get into poverty." That's the best way to understand it. In most financial contexts, cutting your variance also reduces your expected outcome--and levering up to buy low-variance assets is a good way to gear yourself for negative outcomes, whether those assets are degrees or CDOs.<p>Is there any point more boring than noting that two people who finished school a decade or two ago now think that school isn't such a good deal? It would be pretty craven for Thiel and Arrington to believe the things they believe but lie about it because they'd gone to Stanford, so I'm not sure Wadhwa has a point.

A bunch of guys selling a very expensive product, with a direct financial interest in suppressing this debate...yet no big red "conflict of interest" disclaimers.<p>Modern universities are cargo cults. They do not educate, they select. The value is solely in colocating smart people, which can be done in far less expensive ways.

This article generally makes better points than Lacy's original, especially Jim Plummer's comments, but ultimately still doesn't do much more than fan the flames of the controversy.<p>Conveniently, perceived controversy is the part that benefits Techcrunch the most.

Perhaps Peter Thiel's real master plan is to increase the value of an education by convincing a lot of people that they shouldn't go to school, and thus increasing scarcity of those getting degrees. AmIright?

1. Higher education is incredibly valuable and most capable people should get one if they can. The intellectual discipline college offers for people who take it seriously is incredibly valuable.<p>2. We <i>are</i> in a bubble, sort of. It's not like the tulip bubble or a housing bubble where the product can be sold to a "greater fool", unless you consider the bump in hiring a degree provides to be a "sale". The education bubble is something different: panic-buying fueled by parents who are terrified that their kids will end up insignificant, taking orders rather than giving them, if they don't attend the right schools.<p>It's actually a bidding war over educational cachet and access to limited resources, coupled with much, much higher expectations of the "college experience" (that drive costs up even in the cheaper schools). My grandfather paid $300/year ($4000 today) to go to CMU in the early 1930s. There was also no expectation that it would provide a state-of-the-art, 25000-SF gym, a cafeteria serving better food than most restaurants, and an expensive blow-out concert with free beer every spring.

lots of good points from both sides, me thinks there is a growing need for change in the field of education, since the cost, mediocrity, and opportunity cost of education is growing at an alarming rate. I do not know know what would solution be - maybe some more real life experiences injected in the education - say 6 month study/6 month real life - work, startuping, whatever. me thinks that would provide more opportunities for young people than another course on greek philosophy instead. education needs to be disrupted, thats how I feel after I finished uni.