I'm commenting as a high school senior who has a few start up plans and is still going to college this fall. First off, I take fault with the entire "college i

I'm commenting as a high school senior who has a few start up plans and is still going to college this fall. First off, I take fault with the entire "college is overpriced" deal - that's only without financial aid. Harvard costs 60k sticker, but costs around 20k or so after financial aid (with 2/3 of people receiving aid). If you make 150k a year, you'll pay 10% of your income on tuition, it's not a massive 60k expense for most people. But secondly, life's always about thinking, and it's always going to be about thinking. For purposes of developing education, nothing develops thinking like college, literally. We have no other social institution that fosters the same long-term interaction, learning, and application as college. But even more importantly, college is crucial for general life development, for learning about the world, meeting girls/guys, and all of the misadventures that we tend to take lessons from. I have over 2000 hours of research in an emerging field, and I'm interested in starting a company on it, but it's not worth skipping college over. It may be worth taking a gap year (which seems more in line with the original Thiel philosophy) but I'm sure I'll have time to fit in a budding startup after classes. If the startup looks promising, and becomes less risky, then sure, it's worth taking a break from college. But until that point, college is a great investment; if you're going to invest in anything, why not invest in yourself? But with all that being said.. the Thiel application has a few major similarities to the college app process. Thiel recipients probably did well in school, maybe in math/science competitions, have good ideas and are communicative. These skills probably got them into top schools (Ivy/MIT/Stanford). But because the Thiel program is a selection process in itself, it still provides some guidance and is at least better than an unstructured 4 years of skipping college. Oh and one more thought: people will always care about credentials, which prove that you can do what you say you do. Starting a company, participating in Thiel, or going to a top school all count as credentials - but dropping out of college doesn't guarantee any of those three, and in that sense, is a very risky decision.