Keep in mind that I'm already ruling out people with substantial established track records of prior accomplishment, leaving you with:
- people mid 30s or older without any kind of track record to speak of (UNLIKELY TO BE A GOOD INVESTMENT!)
- kids in the 18-25 y/o bracket, eg old enough to sign a contract but not-yet with a track record
So if we have someone 18-25 with a tangible track record (eg: successful software / website / invention / artistic performance record / etc.) they're out of the picture; we're left with 18-25 y/o's with promise but nothing else.
In most fields it's not impossible to pull off a huge success without the training acquired in at least an undergraduate program but it's very unlikely in most scientific fields (and if you were the type who could do it you'd probably also already have enough of a tangible track record that you'd not really be part of the group we're considering atm anyways).
EG: you're almost certainly not going to do anything significant in biology or medicine or chemistry or engineering or materials science or semiconductors or optoelectronics (and even football and basketball) without the training usually acquired as an undergrad (let alone in grad school).
So yeah: the money not being tied to college would have its appeal but putting on the investor's hat for a second someone without a plan for acquiring that level of training looks like a bad bet unless there are further mitigating factors.
Which is why I think the assumption is still mostly warranted, even if it shouldn't be taken for granted (as it was in my previous response).
But, what is helpful is this points in the direction of selecting candidates who would benefit from this program: musicians and other artists.
In many musical + artistic genres a couple hundred upfront in exchange for a cut of lifetime earnings is much better than the deal they typically get now. There's not necessarily a ton of fledgling artists out there who'd actually be good investments but it's a niche where the offer may make a fair amount of sense from both sides.
Essentially you should be asking: what potentially-highly-remunerative "career paths" are (a) open to people in their early-mid 20s and (b) such that star talents exist and (c) such that star talents would find this type of investing a better option than their existing funding options.