PayPal Co-Founder Gives Out $100,000 To Not Go To College

Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel says the key to quicker business innovation is skipping college. His foundation is handing out $100,000 to 24 people under 20 to drop out of college for two years and start companies. From the press release: "As the first members of the 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship, the Fellows will pursue innovative scientific and technical projects, learn entrepreneurship, and begin to build the technology companies of tomorrow. During their two-year tenure, each Fellow will receive $100,000 from the Thiel Foundation as well as mentorship from the Foundation’s network of tech entrepreneurs and innovators. The project areas for this class of fellows include biotech, career development, economics and finance, education, energy, information technology, mobility, robotics, and space."

Funny Thing

[Sonny Yatsen]

For a guy who's claiming that college impedes innovation, Peter Thiel sure had a lot of it. He has a BA in Philosophy and a Juris Doctor from Stanford.

Re:Funny Thing

[arb phd slp]

(A lot of people said the same thing, but replying to you because you're the non-AC).

A B.A. in philosophy + a J.D. is a common combination of degrees. Philosophy is increasingly becoming the undergrad foundation for graduate studies in Law. It's like being a premed major, which doesn't qualify you to do much of anything except go to med school.

Re:Neat!

[DurendalMac]

THIS. The guys railing against college always cite insane amounts of debt. I don't know where the hell they dropped out, but most state schools won't leave you with anywhere near that much debt. I'll be graduating next year and figure I'll have less than $25k. Not ideal, but student loans aren't exactly back-breaking in their payment plans, at least they aren't if you avoided private loans like the goddamned plague. Payments are pretty low, interest usually isn't that bad, and they usually are willing to work with you if you fall on hard times.

Re:So tell me

[nschubach]

Unfortunately, pretty much every school I've visited requires that you do 'N' credits of something you don't love because some ass-hat thought that college kids need to take 'N' credits of something other than focused study.

If I could go to a college right now and study only computer languages and computer science while skipping all the other stuff (Psychology [which I admit, I kind of enjoyed]/English Literature/Japanese Management [WTH did I have to take that class?]...) I'd have my degree. I left school because I hated attending classes that I had no interest in.