10 ms·

Don't Glorify Dropping Out

60 points by J3L2404 16y ago

notallama 16y ago
dropping out to work on something can be a good idea. start while you're in school, and only drop out once you can't handle both, though. maybe take a light course load at first, and if your project really picks up steam, drop the courses. dropping out to work for someone is just stupid.
kiba 16y ago
With all due respect, Peter Thiel doesn't encourage everyone to drop out. He thought that college is indeed suitable for probably a great majority of young people.
lhnn 16y ago
This man offering the scholarship to 'stop-outs' won't instantly make the university system collapse. If I had a great idea and an investor was $100k confident in the monetization of it, I would probably drop out, too. The author's whole premise is that dropping out is universally bad and should be discouraged, and that staying in school is universally good. Neither are true. The article also misses the point: Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? What if they had said, "I'll get a real job first, then work on my idea." The world might look very different. Non-Ph.D. entrepreneurs and academics can peacefully coexist. EDIT: I concede to gxti that my statement about the author's premise is false. I stand by my other opinions: The scholarship is a neat idea and will not convince most people to drop out.
- aneesh 16y ago
  The article also misses the point: Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? I don't think the article misses the point. He never says Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg should never have dropped out. He's just saying that dropping out should be rare. For the vast majority of people, it's not the right thing to do, financially. The "right people" will ignore all the discouragement and drop out anyway. People like Sergey Brin & Larry Page will drop out, with or without Thiel's investment. "It's better to discourage than to encourage dropping out, so that it's done only for compelling reasons."
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    > People like Sergey Brin & Larry Page will drop out, with or without Thiel's investment. That is probably precisely the part that Thiel disagrees with you about. Who knows how many would-be Brins and Pages couldn't afford the risk?
    - Aloisius 16y ago
      Risk adverse people aren't generally successful at founding startups.
      - deleted 16y ago
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      - stanleydrew 16y ago
        Exactly. By reversing the equation and actually paying people to leave school and found startups Peter Thiel is likely going to get some people who are too risk averse to do it without a guaranteed reward. I'm not sure this is a preferable outcome, but surely he's thought of it and decided it was worth a try.
- gxti 16y ago
  > The author's whole premise is that dropping out is universally bad and should be discouraged, and that staying in school is universally good. No, the entire premise is in the title: Don't encourage kids to drop out. If they want to do it, they'll do it, and good on them for it. The last paragraph even argues against "extreme points of view" which would suggest that interpreting the article as "they say drop out, don't do it" is totally wrong. > Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? Worthless speculation. We'd be somewhere different, yes, but no less interesting and no worse off.
  - Eliezer 16y ago
    No, the premise is, don't glorify dropouts. Sort of a giveaway that it might be about prestige.
AndrewWarner 16y ago
College is broken. Anyone who paid and went for 4 years, knows its an inefficient use of time and money. What we need to do is stop glorifying college.
- klbarry 16y ago
  It would be amazing if there was similar financial support and culture around some other structured success environment - imagine $100,000 to spend learning a craft? You could become a god in four years of concentration, not worrying about a career.
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    It would be interesting if someone could combine the two. Colleges give experience credit all the time. I wonder if an accredited institution could work with a company like Y-Combinator (which provides mentoring anyway) to create a business program that awarded a degree for going through a program in which you create a startup. There would certainly have to be gen ed considerations but Universities do those online now so it wouldn't be hard to make them available.
- watty 16y ago
  College isn't broken, it's just not for everyone. I don't regret my 4 years one bit, it was the best period of my life. I had some amazing social and educational experiences that I wouldn't have received had I not attended - who knew religion and geology could be so interesting? Most importantly I received a CS degree which helped me transition into the real world and be successful today. You may feel it was a waste of time and money but for me, it was a bargain.
  - TomOfTTB 16y ago
    The point is there's nothing you get from college that you couldn't get for free somewhere else (Internet for info and Industry gatherings for social aspects). College puts it together in a nice, easy to digest package but they vastly over charge for it. The college model is still based around a philosophy from the 1800s when they were the sole providers of information.
Aloisius 16y ago
Speaking as a high school drop out, I wouldn't recommend it for the vast majority of people. College is useful for the people you meet as much as the education you receive. That said, in Silicon Valley, a few companies on your résumé, a single high profile company and/or a major achievement is more than enough to compensate for a lack of education. Outside of Silicon Valley? Well that's another story.
- metageek 16y ago
  >Outside of Silicon Valley? Well that's another story. It's the same here in the Boston area. I suspect it'll be the same at most companies with heavy software work.
  - rpbertp13 16y ago
    He probably meant 'Silicon Valley' metonymically.
ams6110 16y ago
If you drop out, you can always "drop in" again. People drop out all the time for all kinds of reasons, then go back a year or two later and finish.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  This doesn't apply to all countries, unfortunately.
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jdminhbg 16y ago
I'm not sure why we are meant to judge the glorification of dropping out by a drop out more suspiciously than the glorification of academia by a European History PhD.
- astrofinch 16y ago
  But to be fair his arguments against dropping out mostly didn't have to do with Thiel.
Eliezer 16y ago
Reminder: People who think of themselves as getting prestige from their college education may view something that challenges the prestige of college as an attack on their hard-won status. Reminder 2: College is broken. It needs challenging.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  Your point is well taken but I'd offer one caveat which is the people in Reminder #1 are a big part of the problem that creates Reminder #2. I recently attended a meeting between educators and future California Governor Jerry Brown. At that meeting I watched a woman with a doctorate in English scream at the future (and former) Mayor of California because he was telling her they'd have to cut her six figure salary. Even though she admitted her students test scores were abysmal and everyone in the room knows she couldn't go anywhere else and get paid the same rate she still felt she was entitled to the money on her degree alone. Bottom line (IMHO): If society is to move forward people who deify the degree need to be relieved of that delusion even if it's painful to them.
  - enjo 16y ago
    My bet is that her expertise in English <whatever> is vast and noteworthy. I don't deify the degree, but I certainly deify the accomplishment of earning a PhD. The fact that as an English PhD she was able to even get a job, much less a high paying one certainly implies that she's an expert in her field. I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero inkling of what's involved in the PhD process (no worries, most people don't even when they think they do). I've lived through my wifes years in PhD school (accounting). It was as intense a 5 years as I could imagine anyone enduring.
    - nkassis 16y ago
      "PhD school (accounting)" that's an interesting choice. What kind of research or work does she do?
alexwestholm 16y ago
The article is written by a Ph.d. That probably means he's got a vested interest in people staying in school...
- pjscott 16y ago
  I doubt he's motivated by a financial interest, if that's what you're suggesting. What he certainly has a stake in is maintaining the social status that college degrees give you. He put years into getting a PhD, and if he's teaching undergrads, that means he devotes a lot of time to helping other people get college degrees. To someone in his position, "glorifying dropouts" devalues his accomplishments and his work, at least in the eyes of others.
deleted 16y ago
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kirinkalia 16y ago
I'm wondering how many of those who drop out of college to start companies succeed -- and by success I don't mean Zuckerberg or Gates type of success but have a profitable company and make enough money to live a comfortable (not extravagant) life? I believe college is not for everybody or at the same stage of life (i.e., you could go back if the company you started doesn't work out). But I do agree with Thiel's point that a degree provides some level of insurance.
garrettgillas 16y ago
Yeah, anyone who posts their degree in their byline is going to be less than objective when writing a piece like this. Nobody likes to feel like they've been ripped off. Maybe in the future the college degree will be thought of as the Thigh Master of our generation.
dasil003 16y ago
> But there's something to be said for a degree as employability insurance. There's something to be said for going out and learning how to get things done and build a business as well. A college degree is hardly insurance for anything. It's clear this guy doesn't have any actual experience with startups. He rattles off the usual talking points: > startups can be as profitable as a few are, only because the great majority of other entrepreneurs with similar ideas fail. Uh, no, they didn't succeed because others failed; they succeed because they were able to sell a product. Also, the ones that failed did not all go hungry in the streets, many if not most of them gained priceless experience of far more financial value than what academia is offering. I don't necessarily advocate dropping out or going to college. You can learn a lot in college, and I certainly value my degree, however it is not the source of my financial security. As the cost of college goes up, grades inflate, and the percentage of people with college degrees increase, the cost-benefit of college is rapidly shifting. Going to college simply isn't much of a differentiator any more, and because it's gotten so easy, it's not as good an indicator of competence the way it used to be. Especially these days when companies are no longer loyal, the type of job that a degree is required for is not some bastion of stability. 30 years from now when those college graduates get layed off to cut costs, what is the value of their college degree then? At that point they will be much better off if they've learned some business hustle.
- enjo 16y ago
  Counterpoint: First off, I don't have a college degree. I have something like 102 hours, so I'm a year'ish short. That said, I'm always a bit wary of hiring folks who don't have (at least) a liberal arts education of some kind. I don't really care about the computer science, engineering, physics part of the degree. I care about the part of college that prepares you to learn. I care about the breadth of experience that literature, writing, philosophy, and the like give you. I've now interviewed far too many folks who have deep computer science knowledge without a degree, but lack the ability to internalize and learn at a deep level. I think that's what college does a tremendous job of preparing people for. I jump at the chance to hire people who took strong programming skills to college and got a degree in something perpendicular to their programming skill set. One of the best hires I ever made had a degree in hospitality management. Short of that, at least stay in college long enough to complete those required core classes. You'll be a much stronger developer, business person, whatever for it.
DanielBMarkham 16y ago
But there's something to be said for a degree as employability insurance. There is something to be said, and it's been said. The question is whether not it's just said or it's real. Growing evidence suggests that college degrees are falling out of line with needs of society. (I'm not saying degrees are bad things. I love education and keep learning every day. If anything, I have a problem with certification madness) If you'd like some arm-wavey slandering of the tech community, I'll give it a shot: younger and younger people are making millions of dollars at startups. This has, in effect, created something of a lottery system where there is huge payback but most folks don't win. VCs and Angel groups are jumping on the bandwagon, using age as a indicator of startup potential. All of this creates a perverse set of counter-incentives against a traditional classic liberal education. That's a bad thing. But it's not bad enough to get all upset about. Not yet. It's simply something to observe and see how it progresses.
proexploit 16y ago
I dropped out of college and it was a great decision for me. Every person is different. For some, college is great. For some, dropping out is great. I'd guess the choice that is better for you is related to your learning style. I'd never attempt to convince someone to drop out of college, but if they do and it works out well for them, I'll be happy to congratulate them.
mbyrne 16y ago
College is like bundled software. You're buying a basket of goods, some of the items, probably all, are not the best-of-class, but you get an overall value that some people think is worth the cost and time, particularly if they don't think about the time or cost, since there is social validation from everyone else doing it, and it lets them avoid the thought and effort involved with evaluating the alternatives for their lives. Best way to learn? No, but you'll learn something. College is about being socialized into society. You'll meet people and join networks. You'll have fun, go to parties, and date. You'll be away from home and learn to live on your own. You'll get a certification that will allow you to apply for certain jobs you would otherwise be excluded from. In short, to fit into the role society wants for you. The people who are supposedly being glorified for dropping out are actually being glorified for dropping out to do something better than the usual thing. And to those comfortable with and benefiting from the status quo, this act of rejection is perceived as a threat to their plans for you.
bhudman 16y ago
As some one pointed out in the comments, everyone is different. Sure, college may be broken, but I certainly don't regret going to college. I then went to grad school (for ECE) and now I am in school for an MPA (nonprofit studies). I do not think Peter Thiel is encouraging people to crap on colleges. It all boils down to an individual - people going to college and those that don't - both can make a difference. As much as I admire entrepreneurs, facebook and myspace do not solve pressing problems (disease, hunger etc). Sure, we admire the founders because they made it, but money is not the end all. I'd be scared to live in a world full of entrepreneurs :).
YooLi 16y ago
People (here at HN) seem to be relating not needing a college degree to not needing a computer science degree. There is a huge difference though with degrees for pre-med (biology, bio-chem, etc.), electrical engineering, civil engineering, nuclear engineering, etc. You definitely need those degrees if that's the field you are pursuing.
- pjscott 16y ago
  I have an electrical engineering degree, and looking back on it, there's really not much there that you couldn't learn just fine from the Internet -- if the material were readily available, and there were a community of people learning EE online. In order for that to happen, though, EE education would need to get its act together, and change quite a bit. It's frustrating to see how much better education could be, if only more fields would start using the internet properly. (Fun fact: I don't have a CS degree, but I'm taking graduate-level CS classes and doing fine. I know that CS it something you can learn well from the internet. I know what it feels like to learn the equivalent of an undergraduate degree online. And EE could be that way, too.)
omouse 16y ago
What? Why not? The way things are going, your degree isn't worth as much as you'd like it to be and you'll probably be in debt for a while just to pay it off.
joshklein 16y ago
It may not be an accredited institution, but Thiel is basically starting his own school and offering transfers, not telling people to drop out. I find it similar to Seth Godin's "MBA" program. An education has 3 valuable components: the people it lets you meet, the experiences you get to have, and the story it lets you tell about yourself to future listeners. If you're not going down the path of a formal education, you still have to make sure you cover these bases.
geebee 16y ago
The glorification of dropping out may be a result of sample bias - journalists don't spill as much ink about the people who dropped out of college and ended up failing. That said, some dropouts scare me more than others. For instance, dropping out of high school to be an athlete, rock star, or actor seems very risky. It all worked out for Andre Agassi, but what would he have done if he'd only been a top 2,000 tennis player? Dropping out of college or (especially) grad school to become a startup founder seems much less so. If someone has succeeded through the first two years of computer science, they'll be able to go back and finish that degree if they are so inclined. One major weakness of the article is that it points to the contributions of professors and researchers who made it all possible for gates, ellison, the google guys, and so forth by publishing unpatented research that served as the foundation for blockbuster companies. Great that they did this, of course, I love these guys, but he seems to be saying that everone else is depending on some other underpaid schlub to stick it through. Next career day, I'm going to go to my local college and say "some of you need to finish grad school and do PhD's - otherwise, how will other people get rich off your ideas?" Jeez, what a pitch.
- kirinkalia 16y ago
  So true about journalists and agreed that not all droputs are the same. Andre Agassi was successful, yes, but he regrets never finishing his education --and he's all about kids from his charter school going to college. Frankly, the world needs all kinds of people, and the work many people do (not just entrepreneurs) depends on the work of others. Many two-income families would be SOL if there weren't people willing to clean homes and take of children, for example.
markbao 16y ago
Funny this comes up, since I'm applying to this program (see profile). I think it's what I need in place of a college education. In other words, it's the right track for my post-secondary 'education' as opposed to college.
elai 16y ago
A degree is also useful for visas. If your canadian and you don't have a degree good luck getting a TN or any other kind of work permit visa down in the US.
joeguilmette 16y ago
I dropped out of college and now run a skydiving business pushing $1.5 million in revenue per year. Year over year we're growing about 50% for two years running. We started with zero online presence and are now able to run Groupon-like social marketing campaigns and gross around $20k in a week. These are good numbers for a B&M business. Especially useful skillset for a business with narrow margins and notoriously low profits. I did this instead of try to transfer from a city college to a UC. Seems like two years running such a business is a bit more educational and resume boosting than getting a degree. I am technical but do not have the discipline to study technical majors or really teach myself enough of a language to build something. I can make minor tweaks and know enough to work with devs. I don't feel like I'd be half as far along with my 'career' if I'd chosen school over life.
stretchwithme 16y ago
Many people finish school having lost the natural drive to succeed. But they know how to regurgitate. I'm not saying school doesn't help you think. But for many it seems to inhibit their ability to act independently. And for many today, there's too much analysis and not enough experimentation.
nkurz 16y ago
I'm a late thirty-something college dropout, and have yet to regret leaving. I attended a fine small liberal arts school (one of those that rotates through the top three spots of the rankings) and attended for three non-consecutive years. I'd start each year with a love of learning and a sense of potential, and finish each one hating the world and most everyone in it. I learned an awful lot there, but a lot more from the environment than the actual courses. I learned about money (I'd never really seen it before), I learned about class in America (we didn't have much of that growing up in Wisconsin), and I learned about a lot about cultural relativism (theory and practice). Given a chance, I would highly encourage anyone to attend the best institution they can possibly gain entrance to. It will be eye opening. But actually getting a degree? Optional. It always felt to me that the certification was at odds with the education. Instead of learning anything in particular, I was being taught to juggle, and to not care too deeply about what I was keeping in the air. This is likely of great value to an employer, but as an individual I want the freedom to care deeply about the content, and never found this to be possible in even an excellent liberal arts college environment. Financially, I'm probably doing worse than most of my peers who stuck with it. But I think this is more a factor of my personality than the lack of a degree. I left the final time to work at a computer company founded by some friends of mine (social networking advantage) and we managed to sell that successfully. The current startup is much shakier, and at this point all the savings are gone, but I'm pretty sure the lack of a degree has not been holding me back. Anyway, I'm all for Peter Thiel. I wish something like this had been around for me. It would have been great to have the feeling there was some approved alternative to college rather than just slogging through.
T-R 16y ago
I doubt that many HN users are really offended by the idea that their degree could be worthless - if it really is, they probably came by that conclusion on their own. The resume/interview process is broken, too, but I think most people would consider it poor judgement to explicitly invest in those who didn't get through it. If he really felt like the degree is just a poor indicator of performance, there would be more discussion about what metric serves as a good alternative, or focus on improving the current metric. Instead, with the age limit, he asserts that degrees are a negative indicator, which makes it sound more like he's purposefully making a poor investment to give a voice to those who have contempt for those who finished college.
jaxtapose 16y ago
I think the guy is on the right path, don't glorify dropping out. Glorify removing unessential distractions.
babeKnuth 16y ago
Don't glorify staying in school.

60 points by J3L2404 16y ago

dropping out to work on something can be a good idea. start while you're in school, and only drop out once you can't handle both, though. maybe take a light course load at first, and if your project really picks up steam, drop the courses. dropping out to work for someone is just stupid.

kiba 16y ago

With all due respect, Peter Thiel doesn't encourage everyone to drop out. He thought that college is indeed suitable for probably a great majority of young people.

lhnn 16y ago

This man offering the scholarship to 'stop-outs' won't instantly make the university system collapse. If I had a great idea and an investor was $100k confident in the monetization of it, I would probably drop out, too. The author's whole premise is that dropping out is universally bad and should be discouraged, and that staying in school is universally good. Neither are true. The article also misses the point: Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? What if they had said, "I'll get a real job first, then work on my idea." The world might look very different. Non-Ph.D. entrepreneurs and academics can peacefully coexist. EDIT: I concede to gxti that my statement about the author's premise is false. I stand by my other opinions: The scholarship is a neat idea and will not convince most people to drop out.

aneesh 16y ago
The article also misses the point: Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? I don't think the article misses the point. He never says Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg should never have dropped out. He's just saying that dropping out should be rare. For the vast majority of people, it's not the right thing to do, financially. The "right people" will ignore all the discouragement and drop out anyway. People like Sergey Brin & Larry Page will drop out, with or without Thiel's investment. "It's better to discourage than to encourage dropping out, so that it's done only for compelling reasons."
- Eliezer 16y ago
  > People like Sergey Brin & Larry Page will drop out, with or without Thiel's investment. That is probably precisely the part that Thiel disagrees with you about. Who knows how many would-be Brins and Pages couldn't afford the risk?
  - Aloisius 16y ago
    Risk adverse people aren't generally successful at founding startups.
    - deleted 16y ago
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    - stanleydrew 16y ago
      Exactly. By reversing the equation and actually paying people to leave school and found startups Peter Thiel is likely going to get some people who are too risk averse to do it without a guaranteed reward. I'm not sure this is a preferable outcome, but surely he's thought of it and decided it was worth a try.
gxti 16y ago
> The author's whole premise is that dropping out is universally bad and should be discouraged, and that staying in school is universally good. No, the entire premise is in the title: Don't encourage kids to drop out. If they want to do it, they'll do it, and good on them for it. The last paragraph even argues against "extreme points of view" which would suggest that interpreting the article as "they say drop out, don't do it" is totally wrong. > Where might we be if some of the 'usual celebrity dropouts' hadn't dropped out? Worthless speculation. We'd be somewhere different, yes, but no less interesting and no worse off.
- Eliezer 16y ago
  No, the premise is, don't glorify dropouts. Sort of a giveaway that it might be about prestige.

AndrewWarner 16y ago

College is broken. Anyone who paid and went for 4 years, knows its an inefficient use of time and money. What we need to do is stop glorifying college.

klbarry 16y ago
It would be amazing if there was similar financial support and culture around some other structured success environment - imagine $100,000 to spend learning a craft? You could become a god in four years of concentration, not worrying about a career.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  It would be interesting if someone could combine the two. Colleges give experience credit all the time. I wonder if an accredited institution could work with a company like Y-Combinator (which provides mentoring anyway) to create a business program that awarded a degree for going through a program in which you create a startup. There would certainly have to be gen ed considerations but Universities do those online now so it wouldn't be hard to make them available.
watty 16y ago
College isn't broken, it's just not for everyone. I don't regret my 4 years one bit, it was the best period of my life. I had some amazing social and educational experiences that I wouldn't have received had I not attended - who knew religion and geology could be so interesting? Most importantly I received a CS degree which helped me transition into the real world and be successful today. You may feel it was a waste of time and money but for me, it was a bargain.
- TomOfTTB 16y ago
  The point is there's nothing you get from college that you couldn't get for free somewhere else (Internet for info and Industry gatherings for social aspects). College puts it together in a nice, easy to digest package but they vastly over charge for it. The college model is still based around a philosophy from the 1800s when they were the sole providers of information.

Aloisius 16y ago

Speaking as a high school drop out, I wouldn't recommend it for the vast majority of people. College is useful for the people you meet as much as the education you receive. That said, in Silicon Valley, a few companies on your résumé, a single high profile company and/or a major achievement is more than enough to compensate for a lack of education. Outside of Silicon Valley? Well that's another story.

metageek 16y ago
>Outside of Silicon Valley? Well that's another story. It's the same here in the Boston area. I suspect it'll be the same at most companies with heavy software work.
- rpbertp13 16y ago
  He probably meant 'Silicon Valley' metonymically.

ams6110 16y ago

If you drop out, you can always "drop in" again. People drop out all the time for all kinds of reasons, then go back a year or two later and finish.

kmfrk 16y ago
This doesn't apply to all countries, unfortunately.

deleted 16y ago

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jdminhbg 16y ago

I'm not sure why we are meant to judge the glorification of dropping out by a drop out more suspiciously than the glorification of academia by a European History PhD.

astrofinch 16y ago
But to be fair his arguments against dropping out mostly didn't have to do with Thiel.

Eliezer 16y ago

Reminder: People who think of themselves as getting prestige from their college education may view something that challenges the prestige of college as an attack on their hard-won status. Reminder 2: College is broken. It needs challenging.

TomOfTTB 16y ago
Your point is well taken but I'd offer one caveat which is the people in Reminder #1 are a big part of the problem that creates Reminder #2. I recently attended a meeting between educators and future California Governor Jerry Brown. At that meeting I watched a woman with a doctorate in English scream at the future (and former) Mayor of California because he was telling her they'd have to cut her six figure salary. Even though she admitted her students test scores were abysmal and everyone in the room knows she couldn't go anywhere else and get paid the same rate she still felt she was entitled to the money on her degree alone. Bottom line (IMHO): If society is to move forward people who deify the degree need to be relieved of that delusion even if it's painful to them.
- enjo 16y ago
  My bet is that her expertise in English <whatever> is vast and noteworthy. I don't deify the degree, but I certainly deify the accomplishment of earning a PhD. The fact that as an English PhD she was able to even get a job, much less a high paying one certainly implies that she's an expert in her field. I'm not arguing about her pay, that's up to the market. However, the condescending tone of your post shows that you have zero inkling of what's involved in the PhD process (no worries, most people don't even when they think they do). I've lived through my wifes years in PhD school (accounting). It was as intense a 5 years as I could imagine anyone enduring.
  - nkassis 16y ago
    "PhD school (accounting)" that's an interesting choice. What kind of research or work does she do?

alexwestholm 16y ago

The article is written by a Ph.d. That probably means he's got a vested interest in people staying in school...

pjscott 16y ago
I doubt he's motivated by a financial interest, if that's what you're suggesting. What he certainly has a stake in is maintaining the social status that college degrees give you. He put years into getting a PhD, and if he's teaching undergrads, that means he devotes a lot of time to helping other people get college degrees. To someone in his position, "glorifying dropouts" devalues his accomplishments and his work, at least in the eyes of others.

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kirinkalia 16y ago

I'm wondering how many of those who drop out of college to start companies succeed -- and by success I don't mean Zuckerberg or Gates type of success but have a profitable company and make enough money to live a comfortable (not extravagant) life? I believe college is not for everybody or at the same stage of life (i.e., you could go back if the company you started doesn't work out). But I do agree with Thiel's point that a degree provides some level of insurance.

garrettgillas 16y ago

Yeah, anyone who posts their degree in their byline is going to be less than objective when writing a piece like this. Nobody likes to feel like they've been ripped off. Maybe in the future the college degree will be thought of as the Thigh Master of our generation.

dasil003 16y ago

> But there's something to be said for a degree as employability insurance. There's something to be said for going out and learning how to get things done and build a business as well. A college degree is hardly insurance for anything. It's clear this guy doesn't have any actual experience with startups. He rattles off the usual talking points: > startups can be as profitable as a few are, only because the great majority of other entrepreneurs with similar ideas fail. Uh, no, they didn't succeed because others failed; they succeed because they were able to sell a product. Also, the ones that failed did not all go hungry in the streets, many if not most of them gained priceless experience of far more financial value than what academia is offering. I don't necessarily advocate dropping out or going to college. You can learn a lot in college, and I certainly value my degree, however it is not the source of my financial security. As the cost of college goes up, grades inflate, and the percentage of people with college degrees increase, the cost-benefit of college is rapidly shifting. Going to college simply isn't much of a differentiator any more, and because it's gotten so easy, it's not as good an indicator of competence the way it used to be. Especially these days when companies are no longer loyal, the type of job that a degree is required for is not some bastion of stability. 30 years from now when those college graduates get layed off to cut costs, what is the value of their college degree then? At that point they will be much better off if they've learned some business hustle.

enjo 16y ago
Counterpoint: First off, I don't have a college degree. I have something like 102 hours, so I'm a year'ish short. That said, I'm always a bit wary of hiring folks who don't have (at least) a liberal arts education of some kind. I don't really care about the computer science, engineering, physics part of the degree. I care about the part of college that prepares you to learn. I care about the breadth of experience that literature, writing, philosophy, and the like give you. I've now interviewed far too many folks who have deep computer science knowledge without a degree, but lack the ability to internalize and learn at a deep level. I think that's what college does a tremendous job of preparing people for. I jump at the chance to hire people who took strong programming skills to college and got a degree in something perpendicular to their programming skill set. One of the best hires I ever made had a degree in hospitality management. Short of that, at least stay in college long enough to complete those required core classes. You'll be a much stronger developer, business person, whatever for it.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

But there's something to be said for a degree as employability insurance. There is something to be said, and it's been said. The question is whether not it's just said or it's real. Growing evidence suggests that college degrees are falling out of line with needs of society. (I'm not saying degrees are bad things. I love education and keep learning every day. If anything, I have a problem with certification madness) If you'd like some arm-wavey slandering of the tech community, I'll give it a shot: younger and younger people are making millions of dollars at startups. This has, in effect, created something of a lottery system where there is huge payback but most folks don't win. VCs and Angel groups are jumping on the bandwagon, using age as a indicator of startup potential. All of this creates a perverse set of counter-incentives against a traditional classic liberal education. That's a bad thing. But it's not bad enough to get all upset about. Not yet. It's simply something to observe and see how it progresses.

proexploit 16y ago

I dropped out of college and it was a great decision for me. Every person is different. For some, college is great. For some, dropping out is great. I'd guess the choice that is better for you is related to your learning style. I'd never attempt to convince someone to drop out of college, but if they do and it works out well for them, I'll be happy to congratulate them.

mbyrne 16y ago

College is like bundled software. You're buying a basket of goods, some of the items, probably all, are not the best-of-class, but you get an overall value that some people think is worth the cost and time, particularly if they don't think about the time or cost, since there is social validation from everyone else doing it, and it lets them avoid the thought and effort involved with evaluating the alternatives for their lives. Best way to learn? No, but you'll learn something. College is about being socialized into society. You'll meet people and join networks. You'll have fun, go to parties, and date. You'll be away from home and learn to live on your own. You'll get a certification that will allow you to apply for certain jobs you would otherwise be excluded from. In short, to fit into the role society wants for you. The people who are supposedly being glorified for dropping out are actually being glorified for dropping out to do something better than the usual thing. And to those comfortable with and benefiting from the status quo, this act of rejection is perceived as a threat to their plans for you.

bhudman 16y ago

As some one pointed out in the comments, everyone is different. Sure, college may be broken, but I certainly don't regret going to college. I then went to grad school (for ECE) and now I am in school for an MPA (nonprofit studies). I do not think Peter Thiel is encouraging people to crap on colleges. It all boils down to an individual - people going to college and those that don't - both can make a difference. As much as I admire entrepreneurs, facebook and myspace do not solve pressing problems (disease, hunger etc). Sure, we admire the founders because they made it, but money is not the end all. I'd be scared to live in a world full of entrepreneurs :).

YooLi 16y ago

People (here at HN) seem to be relating not needing a college degree to not needing a computer science degree. There is a huge difference though with degrees for pre-med (biology, bio-chem, etc.), electrical engineering, civil engineering, nuclear engineering, etc. You definitely need those degrees if that's the field you are pursuing.

pjscott 16y ago
I have an electrical engineering degree, and looking back on it, there's really not much there that you couldn't learn just fine from the Internet -- if the material were readily available, and there were a community of people learning EE online. In order for that to happen, though, EE education would need to get its act together, and change quite a bit. It's frustrating to see how much better education could be, if only more fields would start using the internet properly. (Fun fact: I don't have a CS degree, but I'm taking graduate-level CS classes and doing fine. I know that CS it something you can learn well from the internet. I know what it feels like to learn the equivalent of an undergraduate degree online. And EE could be that way, too.)

omouse 16y ago

What? Why not? The way things are going, your degree isn't worth as much as you'd like it to be and you'll probably be in debt for a while just to pay it off.

joshklein 16y ago

It may not be an accredited institution, but Thiel is basically starting his own school and offering transfers, not telling people to drop out. I find it similar to Seth Godin's "MBA" program. An education has 3 valuable components: the people it lets you meet, the experiences you get to have, and the story it lets you tell about yourself to future listeners. If you're not going down the path of a formal education, you still have to make sure you cover these bases.

geebee 16y ago

The glorification of dropping out may be a result of sample bias - journalists don't spill as much ink about the people who dropped out of college and ended up failing. That said, some dropouts scare me more than others. For instance, dropping out of high school to be an athlete, rock star, or actor seems very risky. It all worked out for Andre Agassi, but what would he have done if he'd only been a top 2,000 tennis player? Dropping out of college or (especially) grad school to become a startup founder seems much less so. If someone has succeeded through the first two years of computer science, they'll be able to go back and finish that degree if they are so inclined. One major weakness of the article is that it points to the contributions of professors and researchers who made it all possible for gates, ellison, the google guys, and so forth by publishing unpatented research that served as the foundation for blockbuster companies. Great that they did this, of course, I love these guys, but he seems to be saying that everone else is depending on some other underpaid schlub to stick it through. Next career day, I'm going to go to my local college and say "some of you need to finish grad school and do PhD's - otherwise, how will other people get rich off your ideas?" Jeez, what a pitch.

kirinkalia 16y ago
So true about journalists and agreed that not all droputs are the same. Andre Agassi was successful, yes, but he regrets never finishing his education --and he's all about kids from his charter school going to college. Frankly, the world needs all kinds of people, and the work many people do (not just entrepreneurs) depends on the work of others. Many two-income families would be SOL if there weren't people willing to clean homes and take of children, for example.

markbao 16y ago

Funny this comes up, since I'm applying to this program (see profile). I think it's what I need in place of a college education. In other words, it's the right track for my post-secondary 'education' as opposed to college.

elai 16y ago

A degree is also useful for visas. If your canadian and you don't have a degree good luck getting a TN or any other kind of work permit visa down in the US.

joeguilmette 16y ago

I dropped out of college and now run a skydiving business pushing $1.5 million in revenue per year. Year over year we're growing about 50% for two years running. We started with zero online presence and are now able to run Groupon-like social marketing campaigns and gross around $20k in a week. These are good numbers for a B&M business. Especially useful skillset for a business with narrow margins and notoriously low profits. I did this instead of try to transfer from a city college to a UC. Seems like two years running such a business is a bit more educational and resume boosting than getting a degree. I am technical but do not have the discipline to study technical majors or really teach myself enough of a language to build something. I can make minor tweaks and know enough to work with devs. I don't feel like I'd be half as far along with my 'career' if I'd chosen school over life.

stretchwithme 16y ago

Many people finish school having lost the natural drive to succeed. But they know how to regurgitate. I'm not saying school doesn't help you think. But for many it seems to inhibit their ability to act independently. And for many today, there's too much analysis and not enough experimentation.

nkurz 16y ago

I'm a late thirty-something college dropout, and have yet to regret leaving. I attended a fine small liberal arts school (one of those that rotates through the top three spots of the rankings) and attended for three non-consecutive years. I'd start each year with a love of learning and a sense of potential, and finish each one hating the world and most everyone in it. I learned an awful lot there, but a lot more from the environment than the actual courses. I learned about money (I'd never really seen it before), I learned about class in America (we didn't have much of that growing up in Wisconsin), and I learned about a lot about cultural relativism (theory and practice). Given a chance, I would highly encourage anyone to attend the best institution they can possibly gain entrance to. It will be eye opening. But actually getting a degree? Optional. It always felt to me that the certification was at odds with the education. Instead of learning anything in particular, I was being taught to juggle, and to not care too deeply about what I was keeping in the air. This is likely of great value to an employer, but as an individual I want the freedom to care deeply about the content, and never found this to be possible in even an excellent liberal arts college environment. Financially, I'm probably doing worse than most of my peers who stuck with it. But I think this is more a factor of my personality than the lack of a degree. I left the final time to work at a computer company founded by some friends of mine (social networking advantage) and we managed to sell that successfully. The current startup is much shakier, and at this point all the savings are gone, but I'm pretty sure the lack of a degree has not been holding me back. Anyway, I'm all for Peter Thiel. I wish something like this had been around for me. It would have been great to have the feeling there was some approved alternative to college rather than just slogging through.

T-R 16y ago

I doubt that many HN users are really offended by the idea that their degree could be worthless - if it really is, they probably came by that conclusion on their own. The resume/interview process is broken, too, but I think most people would consider it poor judgement to explicitly invest in those who didn't get through it. If he really felt like the degree is just a poor indicator of performance, there would be more discussion about what metric serves as a good alternative, or focus on improving the current metric. Instead, with the age limit, he asserts that degrees are a negative indicator, which makes it sound more like he's purposefully making a poor investment to give a voice to those who have contempt for those who finished college.

jaxtapose 16y ago

I think the guy is on the right path, don't glorify dropping out. Glorify removing unessential distractions.

babeKnuth 16y ago

Don't glorify staying in school.