$100,000 Fellowships To Not Go To College
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PayPal Co-Founder Hands Out $100,000 Fellowships To Not Go To College : The Two-Way : NPR
Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and one of the first investors in Facebook, is proposing a controversial path toward more rapid innovation. Today his Thiel Foundation announced that it was giving 24 people under 20 $100,000 fellowships to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies.
Some of the recipients are leaving first-rate institutions like Harvard and Stanford to take the fellowship. In a press release, the foundation's head, James O'Neill, said that in taking the fellowship they were "challenging the authority of the present and the familiar."
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Thiel thinks ideas can develop in a start-up environment much faster than at a university. And the project is also intended to question the idea of higher education. Thiel told TechCrunch in April that the United Sates was in a higher education bubble.
"A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed," he told Techcrunch. "Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus."
The The Chronicle of Higher Education adds Thiel is doing just that:
Students today are taking on more debt, and recently tightened bankruptcy laws make it more difficult to shake that debt, he argues, and those factors make higher education a risky investment. "If you get this wrong, it's actually a mistake that's hard to undo for the rest of your life," he said.
Critics contend that even so, Thiel's advice to leave school and develop a business is applicable only to a tiny fraction of students and that Thiel's own success, aided by business relationships forged during his days at Stanford, argues against leaving school.
But Thiel is convinced that the social pressure for students to pursue "lower-risk trajectories" in their career choices will lead to less innovation in the future.
Thiel, whom The New York Times calls a "contrarian" and "libertarian," told the paper that not everyone should drop out of college:
The fellows agree to stop getting a formal education for two years but can always go back to school. The problem, he said, is that "in our society the default assumption is that everybody has to go to college."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/05/25/136646918/paypal-co-founder-hands-out-100-000-fellowships-to-not-go-to-college
Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and one of the first investors in Facebook, is proposing a controversial path toward more rapid innovation. Today his Thiel Foundation announced that it was giving 24 people under 20 $100,000 fellowships to drop out of school for two years to start a their own companies.
Some of the recipients are leaving first-rate institutions like Harvard and Stanford to take the fellowship. In a press release, the foundation's head, James O'Neill, said that in taking the fellowship they were "challenging the authority of the present and the familiar."
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Thiel thinks ideas can develop in a start-up environment much faster than at a university. And the project is also intended to question the idea of higher education. Thiel told TechCrunch in April that the United Sates was in a higher education bubble.
"A true bubble is when something is overvalued and intensely believed," he told Techcrunch. "Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States. To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It's like telling the world there's no Santa Claus."
The The Chronicle of Higher Education adds Thiel is doing just that:
Students today are taking on more debt, and recently tightened bankruptcy laws make it more difficult to shake that debt, he argues, and those factors make higher education a risky investment. "If you get this wrong, it's actually a mistake that's hard to undo for the rest of your life," he said.
Critics contend that even so, Thiel's advice to leave school and develop a business is applicable only to a tiny fraction of students and that Thiel's own success, aided by business relationships forged during his days at Stanford, argues against leaving school.
But Thiel is convinced that the social pressure for students to pursue "lower-risk trajectories" in their career choices will lead to less innovation in the future.
Thiel, whom The New York Times calls a "contrarian" and "libertarian," told the paper that not everyone should drop out of college:
The fellows agree to stop getting a formal education for two years but can always go back to school. The problem, he said, is that "in our society the default assumption is that everybody has to go to college."
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/05/25/136646918/paypal-co-founder-hands-out-100-000-fellowships-to-not-go-to-college
“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.” Abraham Lincoln
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That's different. For some people it might be a great option; school just isn't for everyone.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
That's not a problem in Louisiana, where a large (and very vocal) segment of the population is VERY anti-education.
It'll be interesting to see how this works though. I shouldn't say this as someone who works for a university, but I think a degree is often overvalued. I went to college for four years to study journalism and didn't become a better writer. I learned more about how a newsroom works while working for the yearbook and freelancing for a newspaper. It may make more of a difference to people studying the sciences, but it didn't help me at all.
And yet, without a diploma, I would never have gotten the job I have. A lot of companies (my gut feeling says most, but I don't have anything to back that up) don't hire solely on merit - they want to see the piece of paper that says you graduated from college.
I hope the students who receive the fellowships do well and kick ass - but if they don't, they're just going to end up in college as adults trying to get a degree alongside 18-year-olds who will be more marketable than them upon graduation because of their youth (a lot of the companies I've dealt with prefer to hire younger graduates because they're seen as being less stuck in their ways and therefore easier to mold).
A university education is a gateway for most people, but it is not necessary, and obviously not required--and it shouldn't be.
Also, before I get attacked (come on, it's the AMT, it is possible) I do realize that the education system of the U.S. needs improvement. Serious improvement. No Child Left Behind seriously hurt our high school education system. There is some work to do; and, this work needs to be done by all involved, not just one side or one group.
Well said. I think that too many people go to university because it is expected; I don't know about you but I find those students extremely difficult to reach. A degree (or three) can be an asset, but I don't think that it's required to be a success.
Can you elaborate on No Child Left Behind, or is there another thread on that topic? I don't consider myself an educator per se (despite sharing career paths with you) but I thought that it was a positive initiative (the only one from that administration?).
And a personal aside, as a bunch of us were suffering through finishing we adopted the motto "friends don't let friends do PhDs"...it a nice thing to get done, best of luck!
Schools have a financial interest in your success, more percentage of students gradute, more money that school gets. They are just another business, they don't Care about you just there own selfish greed.
I don't know about all the greed stuff, but I will say that if society is expected to take care of the failures, then there needs to be the attempt to get people to be at least have way successful even in spite of themselves...
I love this idea, people don't need to finish school all at once, if someone has a great idea why on earth should they have to wait if the opportunity is there to go for it now.
It is terrifying when you are too stupid to know who is dumb
- Joe Rogan