Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Skipping College (Peter Thiel)

http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/10/pe...s-not-the-internet-its-higher-education/

Peter Thiel: We�re in a Bubble and It�s Not the Internet. It�s Higher Education.
by Sarah Lacy
Tech Crunch, April 10, 2011

...

Thiel�s solution to opening the minds of those who can�t easily go to Harvard? Poke a small but solid hole in this Ivy League bubble by convincing some of the most talented kids to stop out of school and try another path. The idea of the successful drop out has been well documented in technology entrepreneurship circles. But Thiel and Founders Fund managing partner Luke Nosek wanted to fund something less one-off, so they came up with the idea of the �20 Under 20″ program last September, announcing it just days later at San Francisco Disrupt. The idea was simple: Pick the best twenty kids he could find under 20 years of age and pay them $100,000 over two years to leave school and start a company instead.

Two weeks ago, Thiel quietly invited 45 finalists to San Francisco for interviews. Everyone who was invited attended� no hysterical parents in sight. Thiel and crew have started to winnow the finalists down to the final 20. They�ll be announced in the next few weeks.

While a controversial program for many in the press, plenty of students, their parents and people in tech have been wildly supportive. Thiel received more than 400 applications and most were from very high-end schools, including about seventeen applicants from Stanford. And more than 100 people in his network have signed up to be mentors to them.

Thiel thinks there�s been a sea-change in the last three years, as debt has mounted and the economy has faltered. �This wouldn�t have been feasible in 2007,� he says. �Parents see kids moving back home after college and they�re thinking, �Something is not working. This was not part of the deal.� We got surprisingly little pushback from parents.� Thiel notes a handful of students told him that whether they were selected or not, they were leaving school to start a company. Many more built tight relationships with competing applicants during the brief Silicon Valley retreat� a sort of support group of like-minded restless students.

Of course, if the problem Thiel sees with the higher education bubble is elitism, why were so many of the invitees Ivy League kids? Where were the smart inner-city kids let down by economic blight and a failing education system of a city like Detroit; the kids who need to be lifted up the most? Thiel notes it wasn�t all elites. Many of the applicants came from other countries, some from remote villages in emerging markets.

<my comment>

I will almost certainly encourage my children to go to college, but I do think it is oversold. College graduates earn more than non-graduates not just because of what they learn in college but because they are on average more intelligent and persevering than non-graduates.

Thanks Bostonian, for the link to the very interesting article. I think in a way that the hostility school folks show our kids it that often our kids - just by existing - call into question the whole 'education will solve all our social problems and insure a good future for everyone' myth.

It does scare me how much money colleges charge - but I see my motivation as a bit different - not 200K for my son to discuss Chaucer, but maybe for him to be in a place where it's normal to delve deeply into Chaucer surrounded by enthusiastic peers and teachers. Probably not Harvard, but maybe Swathmore, Williams, Grinell or Wesylean.

Interestingly to me, is that what doesn't get questioned is the idea that most 18 year olds are ready for the 'independence' granted to college freshmen to be subjected to peer-pressure like the world has never seen with very few supports in a completely artificial environment of college. Judging by my outer-directed perfectionism tinged memories from age 17 of my campus agemates - the answer was no way back in the 1980. I don't get the sense that campus culture has improved since then.

So I question the whole idea of 'sleep away college' in general, not just on the grounds that the fincial investment isn't a good risk. If you child is one of the ones who is too damaged by the process to finish college, or worse, then the risks go way beyond financial. I do get it that this is going to sound ironic from a mom who's teen is living away at boarding school. ((shrugs and more shrugs)) I didn't say that I thought sleep-away college was bad for me! ((wink))

Love and More Love,
Grinity

First chair HS and College (string/wind) musicians make great computer programmers.

In six months they can do the same level of work as people with CS degrees and they have a better work ethic.

So, then, what is the point of college when a well developed internal mentoring program can create a staff with a high level of output?

I will strongly encourage college -- and will do what I can to make it possible -- but I won't mandate it for our children.

Over the last 20+ years, I've worked with an incredible assortment of successful small business people. College degrees were few & far between. While necessary (if not required) in some fields, the sheepskins are neither a guarantee nor prerequisite of success.

Following on Austin's comment, some of the best developers & programmers we've ever hired had little -- if any -- college education.

I do think it would have been a more interesting study if he did find the brightest from underpriveleged children and see how they did with top college grads 10 years from now.

But you cannot practice law or be an engineer or be a physician or a dentist without college. You cannot even be an occupational therapist without college and a license. And not every one is entrepeneurial.

And, the biggest problem, is not having an idea, but the marketing. In general, people don't like the marketing. I did the Frastrac course in NYC and Bloomberg came in and talked about when he started his company-- which took 3 years to develop, he went to Merrill Lynch offices early in the morning with a tray of coffees to see who was in and schmooze. First, since 9/11, you cannot walk into an office building anymore without an appt and ID. So that wouldn't work in today's age.

In the Fastrac course, you had ideas, but they said plans always fall apart when entrepeneurs have to sell.

Ahhhh-- so glad to see that someone posted this here. I thought this was a fascinating piece.... but probably not for the reasons that Thiel intended. LOL.

I find it interesting and mind-boggling that so many people persist in viewing "education" as synonymous with JOB TRAINING. <sigh> I know, I know... the next question they all ask is-- "Well, if it isn't, then what is it GOOD for??"

This is the part of higher education that is so difficult to convey to those in the corporate/economic/business mindset-- it's just plain impossible to adequately evaluate and adjust higher education, as a system, when one assumes that an economic/business model can be borrowed from the private sector and applied to higher education as if it SHOULD fit that model.

Students are NOT "customers" in this system... they are not "purchasing" anything but opportunity. Like a loan APPLICATION FEE for a mortgage, if you will. Students are more like the product than the customers. The tax-paying public is the 'customer' in the higher ed model.

I've also found it strange that 'measurable objectives' related to student behavior (course evaluations, graduation rates, student mental health, etc) are much taken into consideration at all in the model of higher ed. The students themselves aren't really in much of a position to insightfully rate the true value of their experiences... at least not until significant time has passed, that is. Now, if one wanted to listen to ALUMNI in ten years, that seems more sound to me. (I really liked Grinity's post-- which related well to this line of thinking for me... that at 17-18yo, many students are still as much children as adults.)

Is higher education "over-rated?" Maybe. Maybe it is just fundamentally misunderstood as an experience. Like viewing world travel as a goal-focused activity in which one efficiently and safely circumnavigates the globe. Doesn't that miss the point?

Most faculty I know find 'certificate' programs (outside of a few specific instances, most of them community college-based) to be an abomination that leads directly down a rabbit hole of viewing a university education as 'job training.' This is simply incompatible with the foundation of higher education, which rests upon the notion of liberal arts (and scientific literacy) as a sort of "life foundation" in the same way that "world travel" was once considered an essential part of maturation for those who would be leaders and decision-makers.
It's enrichment on a grand scale, if you will.
Anyway.

Now, the second thing that I found odd here is that Thiel seems to feel that there are only a handful of places to recieve a university education... and that all of them are over-valued. Well, the names he mentions (and is obviously thinking about)... I'd agree with him about the over-valued part.

Stanford wasn't worth what it cost back in the early 80's when I was applying to colleges, and it certainly isn't worth it now. JMO. I'll also admit here that I'm not a 'private school' person just in general terms, though, so that probably colors my perceptions a bit. I do think that there are a lot of great colleges out there, and that college itself is a worthwhile thing. It just isn't worth selling one's soul and future financial security for, quite frankly.

The most critical part of a college education* isn't WHERE a student goes, anyway. It's what the student brings along for the ride.

Personal baggage isn't actually socioeconomic disadvantage, per se, I have found (though administrators and diversity committees dither on endlessly about it because it can be quantified and more of those kids seem to drop out than others). Instead, it's about how well the environment meets their expectations. If a student EXPECTS to: a) work hard at their studies, and b) do things that push them away from where they are "comfortable" intellectually; those students will get a lot out of college as a growth experience. The ones that expect that a high cost, world class institution is capable of "learning it to" them, and providing them with some sort of certificate of a rite of passage at the end of the day? Those that expect that college will provide them with a punched ticket if they ENDURE it? Not-so-much, really.

Essentially, most faculty can pick out the 25% of any freshman class that won't be there at the end of the first year... simply by talking to them casually for about ten minutes, and they can certainly identify the 20% that will unquestionably be successful. It's about their attitudes and their life priorities, mostly.



* with the caveat of understanding the first point, which is to say that if you're whining "what good is this?? I'm never going to USE this," then you've missed the entire point of what college is SUPPOSED to be anyway and maybe-- just maybe-- it is not the right environment for you as an individual.

___________________________________________________

Bottom line is that colleges are not especially well-suited to turning out "trained" workers-- or entrepreneurs. But expecting that is missing the point, really. I've often marveled that colleges and universities are capable of running engineering programs for that very reason, come to think of it.

Will I encourage my daughter to go to college?

Absolutely; but because her dreams and ambitions demand it. As someone else noted, you can't really become an attorney, a scientist, a doctor, etc without higher education. On the other hand, I won't encourage an Ivy, because I firmly believe that who SHE is as a student matters much more than the name on a diploma ever will. I have no problem sending my teenaged daughter to a community college to get a little experience under her belt before turning her loose on a university campus.

If all you care about is training, that path seems fine.

Education (as distinct from training) broadens students' perspectives and refines their capacity for judgment, making them more capable persons and citizens. It can produce more responsible, more resourceful decision-makers, people who understand their impact on the world and empathize with others because they know how and why others think differently than they do.

If this project is successful (depends on the teachers and the student), it's very much worth while.

DeeDee

Here's an interesting and related (well, tangentially, anyway) op-ed bit. It's probably more inflammatory than Thiel's, but it has some interesting ideas once you move past the rhetoric:

Chris Hedges "Why the US is Destroying its Education System


This seemed to me to present a nice counterpoint to Thiel's thesis regarding college.

It begs questions not only about what we might consider to be "success" and further, what constitutes "education" in the first place in a democratic republic.

HK, I LOVE that! I have been saddened by the growing contamination of the higher education system with training, and it's such a loss. What's even sadder is that most people don't even see it or see it as a problem.

It is luxury to see it as a problem when you don't have a job after graduation.