Thiel's college dropout plan scrutinized by '60 Minutes'

The problem with college education in America is that we have stigmatized vocational school.

Some people just aren't meant to be academics, and that's fine. They will never excel at school. So let's teach them something that is useful to society like plumbing or electrical of HVAC.

And now for an anecdote: I was paying a plumber for a job once, and after I handed him $1000 for the 4 hours of work he had done, he told me that his kid (who had been his apprentice for the job) was in college on a sports scholarship, but planned on taking over the family plumbing business upon graduation because it was far more lucrative than anything he'd be able to get with his college degree in humanities.

I was a finalist for Thiel's 20 under 20 program last month (i was rejected). During interviews, I met the other finalists and current fellows who dropped out of school for this program 1 year ago.

The two main problems I saw:

* Their projects were much more academic than entrepreneurial. About half of the fellows are working on very technical projects like making better CAD software, robotic bioautomation, microorganisms to solve global warming, etc. Many seem like they'd be better served in academic environments

* Most of the current fellows do not seem self-sustaining, which may become problematic at the end of their fellowship

IMO it's a good program for the few that are working on startups and need some cash to be able to drop out of school, but I worry that it's doing a disservice to the academic oriented fellows.

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.

"The average plumber makes as much as the average doctor" , really?

I assume somebody is using a very creative definition of one of those.

I tested out of High School a year early and moved to Los Angeles to focus on only what I wanted to do: Act, write, direct. I'm probably not representative of everyone in technology without a college degree, but nevertheless, when I realized Dream #1 wasn't happening, I tool my tech experience in retail to the start-up world, and then settled in to a decent career, which is only getting better with time. Part of me agrees with all this, but with a grain of salt. It's not the path for everyone. Put me in a room of geeks and I can hold my own; put me in a group of more well-rounded folks, fans of opera and the like (tongue in cheek, folks), I couldn't hold my own and would be bored to death. But that's not just due to personal taste, but a total lack of exposure.

My mother never encouraged me to go to school and I spent all my time in my room reading SciFi and Fantasy novels. But I was very smart, and now that I have a kid of my own, I see that same intelligence in her and, guess what, I'm sending her to college. No matter what. She'll have opportunities to do great things, and I wouldn't fault her for pausing college to work on a start-up company, but I would fault her for not finishing school, even if it took a decade or two. See, I want her to be able to sit in that room with all the socialites and hold her own, as easily as she could in a room full of geeks. That said, until the United States improves its view of education and makes some radical changes, my daughter will NOT be going to college in the States. Maybe University of Helsinki? :)

Good luck to all the Thiel Fellows. I think it is needed, for both an _alternative_ and as a reminder to folks in the States that there is a serious problem with the education system...

>"We have a bubble in education, like we had a bubble in housing...everybody believed you had to have a house, they'd pay whatever it took," says Thiel. "Today, everybody believes that we need to go to college, and people will pay -- whatever it takes."

And now we have a bubble in technology, and investors need naive kids churning out products so they can catch lightning in a bottle. And they'll pay whatever it takes.

Does the average plumber make as much as the average doctor? Some quick googling gives the average plumber salary as about 40K. [1] The same site will give you a bunch of doctor's salaries by specialty the lowest one of which seems to be about 170K for a general practitioner.

[1] http://www1.salary.com/Plumber-I-Salary.html

People frequently talk about college as if you can only go when you are 18.

If a budding entrepreneur skips college at 18, he can still go back later.

Skipping college at 18 still may not be the right thing to do... but these conversations frequently overplay the finality of the decision.

Has he actually paid anyone with his deal yet? Just curious.

Does the average plumber make more than the average college graduate? That is the real question. If it's even close, especially after accounting for student loans, that is an indictment of the current higher ed system.

I think he (Thiel) is probably right.

My friend and I were debating this topic today. We both agree that ideally, a well rounded education in the arts and sciences is optimal. However, is it necessary for the skilled completion of many trades? I don't think so.

I think high school has started to fail as an educational mechanism.

Let's face it: There are many, many stupid people in the world who will never be that bright. Be it from biological or parental reasons, there are many who will not grasp intricate logic, higher math and philosophy, etc.

Also, many students are capable of beginning higher education in high school. Programming, engineering, even medical studies could be started in the teen years of the brightest students. But we're not fulfilling that potential at the moment.

tl;dr high school should be more challenging, and we should accept that not everyone should go to college.

Why don't we ask plumbers what they think of a college education? And how it feels to go through life without one. Do wealthy plumbers want their kids to skip college to become wealthy plumbers?