10 ms·

Forgoing College to Pursue Dreams

26 points by zone411 14y ago

oob205 14y ago
Thiel Fellowship draws stellar applicants who I suspect would be successful, college or not. I do wish more regular American high school students got the opportunity to do something similar, i.e., put off college for two years to work and explore passion. I won't go as far as to say college is a waste of time (it's still the most sure-fire route out of poverty for example). But a lot of people go at 18 because it's the next step and end up floundering. I believe we'd get a better return on higher education in the US if there were more regular and accepted opportunities for students to work for a year or two, then decide if college is the right next step.
- rayiner 14y ago
  > I believe we'd get a better return on higher education in the US if there were more regular and accepted opportunities for students to work for a year or two, then decide if college is the right next step. For once the problem isn't with the colleges. Colleges, by and large, don't care how many years you took off between high school and college as long as you bring the right GPA and SAT scores to the table. At colleges that care about more than that (Harvard, etc) having interesting experience after high school can only help your admissions chances. The problem is social acceptance. Too many parents have this silly notion that if a kid doesn't go immediately to college, he'll spend life as a barista. My wife studied in Europe for a year after high school, and she absolutely wants our kids to do something similar. She said that living independently for a year really allowed her to focus on school in a way she could not have otherwise.
j45 14y ago
College was supposed to prepare me to pursue my dreams.
cmagahern 14y ago
The last few paragraphs of the article really brought an interesting light onto the subject. Most of the people I know who left college to start a business or to work somewhere in Silicon Valley had a remarkably privileged upbringing. They never had the worries about the financial or temporal investment into an education or any experience taking risks. I'm not trying to berate people who drop out of college for these reasons, but it's an important factor to keep in mind when truly analyzing their success.
- 001sky 14y ago
  While there is a <lot> of truth in this statement, one notable exception is worth mentioning: steve jobs. who apparently quit school in part because he thought college was too much for his familiy to pay for. But I think you are more right than wrong in your observation. There are a lot of soft social skills and such that you need for business that could be learned in school. May not be news to some depending on there background and natural talents, etc.
  - scott_s 14y ago
    Jobs grew up in Silicon Valley, and had connections to people in the industry that helped in the beginning.
eyoel 14y ago
Article in single-page: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows-forgoing-college-to-pursue-dreams.html?_r=2&hpw&pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows...
rayiner 14y ago
I always find it ironic that Thiel, who followed one of the most risk-averse career tracks possible after high school (top undergrad + top law school + top law firm = guaranteed six-figure salary), is so whole-heartedly encouraging kids to not follow in his footsteps. I question what the risk-weighted expected return for these kids ends up being, and how that compares to more traditional career paths. Thiel himself at least had the fallback option of a traditional career in case his entrepreneurial aspirations didn't work out. It looks like most of these kids already have a top college acceptance in had before accepting Thiel's fellowship, which gives them a backup option in the very likely scenario their "dreams" don't pan out. For kids who didn't have such backup options, I'd really question the rationality of pursing something like this. I do question the broader movement to push kids from college to startups. I had the option of dropping out during college to work for a startup, and in retrospect I'm tremendously thankful I didn't take the opportunity. There is just so much risk of permanently prejudicing yourself for traditional types of work, and it's just a fact of life that very few startups are going to be successful to the point that it would justify forgoing those other opportunities. The cynic in me is inclined to believe that the only ones who really benefit from this push towards startups, in the expected return sense, are the VCs. The VCs can hedge their risk between a number of startups to maximize their expected return. An individual startup founder cannot do that. An individual startup founder who is 19, fresh out of college, and has no safety net can do even less to minimize his risk, and has a lot to lose in the likely event that he fails.
- scott_s 14y ago
  The article does cover the points in your second paragraph, but not until the very end.
- 001sky 14y ago
  It looks like most of these kids already have a top college acceptance in had before accepting Thiel's fellowship, which gives them a backup option in the very likely scenario their "dreams" don't pan out. --The double-Irony is that you think the kid has a "fall back option" just because of his letter of acceptance. =D Part of thiel's critique is that education is mis-priced. That the signalling is most of the value. He's also speaking from experience, having made money outside the content area of his training. So its not irrational or self centered of him to be saying: the content is not the value of a degree, per se. If you believe that, looking at other "content" to substiture or complement the "signalling" makes sense.
elchief 14y ago
Just because you can get into Princeton doesn't mean it's a good idea to pay to go. Full scholarship? Go Parents paying for everything? Go Otherwise, you really need to consider an in-state school, and living at home. You work your ass off to be in the top percentile of students (obviously not a global solution), finish in 3 years, and get a full fellowship for grad school to a place like Princeton. That's how we did it back in the day anyways. Startup Idea You only sell the University Certification, no courses, no teachers, no buildings, no Office of Strategic Management. You only have incredibly hard tests that only 5% of the population can pass. They learn on their own. You guarantee that they are amazingly smart, or will pay their severance.
- porter 14y ago
  Interesting idea. Similar to what the CFA designation does in the world of finance. A lot of college programs actually tailor their coursework to prepare you for the exams, which have a high failure rate.
- itg 14y ago
  I would say Princeton is one of the few schools worth paying for. It will make it much easier to enter certain careers/companies and don't forget about the alumni network that it brings along.
- gyardley 14y ago
  While elite schools like Princeton have very attractive financial aid packages, even if they didn't, the connections you'll make as an undergrad there are well worth the price of admission. It's not just the education you're paying for. If you replace Princeton with another expensive private school that's not a feeder system for America's upper class, I completely agree with your point.
  - Nutella2 14y ago
    According to the article, one of the main advantages of Thiel's program is the contacts they make. So how different is it from the Ivy League?
onetimeuse001 14y ago
As someone said, these are bright people and will probably make it, if not they can still go back to college. But for 99.99% of "smart people," college is probably the best bet. Even if you had a few $million, that can go very easily over the course of decades with a few bad investment decisions, medical bills or whatever. A safe job usually provides a steady income for decades and decades. Thiel is set for life and then some, but even if he loses the money he has a top college education to fall back on. So it's easy to make experiments with other people's lives. No matter what, do not expect to work for Thiel's funds without a degree and from a top college http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-14/wall_street/31696189_1_global-macro-new-hedge-fund-job-market http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-14/wall_street/3...
- randomdata 14y ago
  > But for 99.99% of "smart people," college is probably the best bet. Perhaps not. In the USA: Of the top 1% earners, 49% have a postgraduate education[1]. From what I could find, There are 600,000 doctors and 11,000,000 lawyers in the USA which could be said to cover the vast majority of the 49% group. Of the remaining 51%, 23% have a college degree leaving 27% without a college education. Unless you are looking at very specific fields, it seems you are slightly better off without a degree at all if you are striving for financial success. If your sights are not set so high, and you're happy with just a regular job: Only 30% of the population have a college degree. That means that 60% (discounted 10% to account for unemployment, which isn't even fair as many college graduates are unemployed) of the population are doing just fine without one. With that said, you should still go to college. It is an amazing experience that comes with countless positives. Whatever happens in your future career with respect to said education shouldn't even be a consideration. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conservative.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conser...
  - falsestprophet 14y ago
    > Of the remaining 51%, 23% have a college degree leaving 27% without a college education. Consider that some individuals who are members of households in the top one percent of income earners and have not completed a four year college degree will have married a high income earner who has completed a college or postgraduate education.
alid 14y ago
Rather than looking at traditional 'smarts', I would look at personality factors to assess if someone of college age should drop out - their levels of entrepreneurism, emotional intelligence, communication and persuasion skills, resilience, and sheer grit and determination. These traits can be found in people from any background, and will help them go the distance.
timpeterson 14y ago
I'm so sick of the continuing Peter Thiel hypefest. I don't like college either but his 20 for 20 program is just some ridiculous bullshit.
howcan 14y ago
These kids are not foregoing college if you define "foregoing" as "giving up on". They are merely delaying it. All of them have the credentials to attend college anytime they want. And given that they are intelligent, if their projects fail to deliver, they will likely decide go to college. And they will be able to get others to pay for it. They can afford to hedge their bets against the usual path from high school to university. Every young person who reads these PR pieces will also understand this, so there's no need to worry of anyone not similarly situated foregoing college, only to have their project fail and then realise they have made a tragic mistake. Right.

26 points by zone411 14y ago

Thiel Fellowship draws stellar applicants who I suspect would be successful, college or not. I do wish more regular American high school students got the opportunity to do something similar, i.e., put off college for two years to work and explore passion. I won't go as far as to say college is a waste of time (it's still the most sure-fire route out of poverty for example). But a lot of people go at 18 because it's the next step and end up floundering. I believe we'd get a better return on higher education in the US if there were more regular and accepted opportunities for students to work for a year or two, then decide if college is the right next step.

rayiner 14y ago
> I believe we'd get a better return on higher education in the US if there were more regular and accepted opportunities for students to work for a year or two, then decide if college is the right next step. For once the problem isn't with the colleges. Colleges, by and large, don't care how many years you took off between high school and college as long as you bring the right GPA and SAT scores to the table. At colleges that care about more than that (Harvard, etc) having interesting experience after high school can only help your admissions chances. The problem is social acceptance. Too many parents have this silly notion that if a kid doesn't go immediately to college, he'll spend life as a barista. My wife studied in Europe for a year after high school, and she absolutely wants our kids to do something similar. She said that living independently for a year really allowed her to focus on school in a way she could not have otherwise.

j45 14y ago

College was supposed to prepare me to pursue my dreams.

cmagahern 14y ago

The last few paragraphs of the article really brought an interesting light onto the subject. Most of the people I know who left college to start a business or to work somewhere in Silicon Valley had a remarkably privileged upbringing. They never had the worries about the financial or temporal investment into an education or any experience taking risks. I'm not trying to berate people who drop out of college for these reasons, but it's an important factor to keep in mind when truly analyzing their success.

001sky 14y ago
While there is a <lot> of truth in this statement, one notable exception is worth mentioning: steve jobs. who apparently quit school in part because he thought college was too much for his familiy to pay for. But I think you are more right than wrong in your observation. There are a lot of soft social skills and such that you need for business that could be learned in school. May not be news to some depending on there background and natural talents, etc.
- scott_s 14y ago
  Jobs grew up in Silicon Valley, and had connections to people in the industry that helped in the beginning.

eyoel 14y ago

Article in single-page: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows-forgoing-college-to-pursue-dreams.html?_r=2&hpw&pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/business/the-thiel-fellows...

rayiner 14y ago

I always find it ironic that Thiel, who followed one of the most risk-averse career tracks possible after high school (top undergrad + top law school + top law firm = guaranteed six-figure salary), is so whole-heartedly encouraging kids to not follow in his footsteps. I question what the risk-weighted expected return for these kids ends up being, and how that compares to more traditional career paths. Thiel himself at least had the fallback option of a traditional career in case his entrepreneurial aspirations didn't work out. It looks like most of these kids already have a top college acceptance in had before accepting Thiel's fellowship, which gives them a backup option in the very likely scenario their "dreams" don't pan out. For kids who didn't have such backup options, I'd really question the rationality of pursing something like this. I do question the broader movement to push kids from college to startups. I had the option of dropping out during college to work for a startup, and in retrospect I'm tremendously thankful I didn't take the opportunity. There is just so much risk of permanently prejudicing yourself for traditional types of work, and it's just a fact of life that very few startups are going to be successful to the point that it would justify forgoing those other opportunities. The cynic in me is inclined to believe that the only ones who really benefit from this push towards startups, in the expected return sense, are the VCs. The VCs can hedge their risk between a number of startups to maximize their expected return. An individual startup founder cannot do that. An individual startup founder who is 19, fresh out of college, and has no safety net can do even less to minimize his risk, and has a lot to lose in the likely event that he fails.

scott_s 14y ago
The article does cover the points in your second paragraph, but not until the very end.
001sky 14y ago
It looks like most of these kids already have a top college acceptance in had before accepting Thiel's fellowship, which gives them a backup option in the very likely scenario their "dreams" don't pan out. --The double-Irony is that you think the kid has a "fall back option" just because of his letter of acceptance. =D Part of thiel's critique is that education is mis-priced. That the signalling is most of the value. He's also speaking from experience, having made money outside the content area of his training. So its not irrational or self centered of him to be saying: the content is not the value of a degree, per se. If you believe that, looking at other "content" to substiture or complement the "signalling" makes sense.

elchief 14y ago

Just because you can get into Princeton doesn't mean it's a good idea to pay to go. Full scholarship? Go Parents paying for everything? Go Otherwise, you really need to consider an in-state school, and living at home. You work your ass off to be in the top percentile of students (obviously not a global solution), finish in 3 years, and get a full fellowship for grad school to a place like Princeton. That's how we did it back in the day anyways. Startup Idea You only sell the University Certification, no courses, no teachers, no buildings, no Office of Strategic Management. You only have incredibly hard tests that only 5% of the population can pass. They learn on their own. You guarantee that they are amazingly smart, or will pay their severance.

porter 14y ago
Interesting idea. Similar to what the CFA designation does in the world of finance. A lot of college programs actually tailor their coursework to prepare you for the exams, which have a high failure rate.
itg 14y ago
I would say Princeton is one of the few schools worth paying for. It will make it much easier to enter certain careers/companies and don't forget about the alumni network that it brings along.
gyardley 14y ago
While elite schools like Princeton have very attractive financial aid packages, even if they didn't, the connections you'll make as an undergrad there are well worth the price of admission. It's not just the education you're paying for. If you replace Princeton with another expensive private school that's not a feeder system for America's upper class, I completely agree with your point.
- Nutella2 14y ago
  According to the article, one of the main advantages of Thiel's program is the contacts they make. So how different is it from the Ivy League?

onetimeuse001 14y ago

As someone said, these are bright people and will probably make it, if not they can still go back to college. But for 99.99% of "smart people," college is probably the best bet. Even if you had a few $million, that can go very easily over the course of decades with a few bad investment decisions, medical bills or whatever. A safe job usually provides a steady income for decades and decades. Thiel is set for life and then some, but even if he loses the money he has a top college education to fall back on. So it's easy to make experiments with other people's lives. No matter what, do not expect to work for Thiel's funds without a degree and from a top college http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-14/wall_street/31696189_1_global-macro-new-hedge-fund-job-market http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-05-14/wall_street/3...

randomdata 14y ago
> But for 99.99% of "smart people," college is probably the best bet. Perhaps not. In the USA: Of the top 1% earners, 49% have a postgraduate education[1]. From what I could find, There are 600,000 doctors and 11,000,000 lawyers in the USA which could be said to cover the vast majority of the 49% group. Of the remaining 51%, 23% have a college degree leaving 27% without a college education. Unless you are looking at very specific fields, it seems you are slightly better off without a degree at all if you are striving for financial success. If your sights are not set so high, and you're happy with just a regular job: Only 30% of the population have a college degree. That means that 60% (discounted 10% to account for unemployment, which isn't even fair as many college graduates are unemployed) of the population are doing just fine without one. With that said, you should still go to college. It is an amazing experience that comes with countless positives. Whatever happens in your future career with respect to said education shouldn't even be a consideration. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conservative.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/151310/u.s.-republican-not-conser...
- falsestprophet 14y ago
  > Of the remaining 51%, 23% have a college degree leaving 27% without a college education. Consider that some individuals who are members of households in the top one percent of income earners and have not completed a four year college degree will have married a high income earner who has completed a college or postgraduate education.

alid 14y ago

Rather than looking at traditional 'smarts', I would look at personality factors to assess if someone of college age should drop out - their levels of entrepreneurism, emotional intelligence, communication and persuasion skills, resilience, and sheer grit and determination. These traits can be found in people from any background, and will help them go the distance.

timpeterson 14y ago

I'm so sick of the continuing Peter Thiel hypefest. I don't like college either but his 20 for 20 program is just some ridiculous bullshit.

howcan 14y ago

These kids are not foregoing college if you define "foregoing" as "giving up on". They are merely delaying it. All of them have the credentials to attend college anytime they want. And given that they are intelligent, if their projects fail to deliver, they will likely decide go to college. And they will be able to get others to pay for it. They can afford to hedge their bets against the usual path from high school to university. Every young person who reads these PR pieces will also understand this, so there's no need to worry of anyone not similarly situated foregoing college, only to have their project fail and then realise they have made a tragic mistake. Right.