cawacko
Well-known member
Now I had a great time in college but I also realize we all take our own different paths. If you were one of the kids offered money would you take it to pursue your idea or go to school instead?
This was founded by a Libertarian leaning guy. I'll add a comment from a reader afterwards.
$100,000 to forgo college?
The Thiel Foundation today named the first winners of its controversial "20 Under 20" fellowship program, which hands young people $100,000 to pursue entrepreneurial ideas rather than a university education.
It's a limited program designed to showcase a bigger -- and for many, a troubling -- idea: That higher education is highly overvalued.
The Thiel Foundation, the libertarian group formed by Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, argues that the costs of college increasingly outweigh the financial returns. They've dubbed it a "higher education bubble."
The broad aim of "20 under 20" is to produce more technological innovation, and in turn faster and more sustainable economic growth, said James O'Neill, head of the Thiel Foundation. We can best encourage that innovation by unleashing the creative and unsullied mind power of people under the age of 20, before lofty student loans and academic orthodoxy funnel them into safe and risk adverse careers, he said.
The 24 fellows named today range from 17- to 20-years olds. They will be given $100,000 cash grants to purse scientific or technological ideas over the next two years, and will also receive mentoring from industry experts.
The winners plan to pursue big ideas in areas like space exploration, clean energy, education, robotics and more.
Three live in the Bay Area, including 18-year-old John Burnham, who recently moved from Boston to Atherton. He hopes to use the fellowship to develop methods to extract valuable materials from near earth objects, an ability he said will be critical for successfully colonizing space.
"What I hope to accomplish is to continue to learn the science behind it, to develop some more practical hands-on experience with companies already doing space technology and then to start building (a usable machine)," he said.
When asked if he's worried that he'll miss out on any critical learning in this field -- or in general -- by forgoing college, he called it "a really amusing question."
"That speaks to the assumption that what happens in college is pure, unadulterated learning," he said. "A lot of colleges are not, in my opinion, ideal places to get that really applied, hands on learning that I feel is necessary for this project."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=89687&tsp=1
And here's how one person commented...
Libertarians are so cute. They are deeply anti-intellectual, and reject college because it requires several things Libertarians are bad at: careful, lengthy, in-depth analysis and critical thinking. But more than anything, they fear the most mundane of classes at a typical college: history. Libertarians hate going to college and learning about parts of American history, like the Great Depression, that prove them wrong. As libs are overwhelmingly white males, they also don't like anythign that teaches students about other cultures, or cultural histories. And that's why libbies are often on the forefront of these sorts of anti-intellectual movements. I guess I have one question for these guys: if college isn't necessary, why is it necessary to give these kids 100k ? Shouldn't succeed in the free market without a socialist subsidy?
This was founded by a Libertarian leaning guy. I'll add a comment from a reader afterwards.
$100,000 to forgo college?
The Thiel Foundation today named the first winners of its controversial "20 Under 20" fellowship program, which hands young people $100,000 to pursue entrepreneurial ideas rather than a university education.
It's a limited program designed to showcase a bigger -- and for many, a troubling -- idea: That higher education is highly overvalued.
The Thiel Foundation, the libertarian group formed by Paypal co-founder and early Facebook investor Peter Thiel, argues that the costs of college increasingly outweigh the financial returns. They've dubbed it a "higher education bubble."
The broad aim of "20 under 20" is to produce more technological innovation, and in turn faster and more sustainable economic growth, said James O'Neill, head of the Thiel Foundation. We can best encourage that innovation by unleashing the creative and unsullied mind power of people under the age of 20, before lofty student loans and academic orthodoxy funnel them into safe and risk adverse careers, he said.
The 24 fellows named today range from 17- to 20-years olds. They will be given $100,000 cash grants to purse scientific or technological ideas over the next two years, and will also receive mentoring from industry experts.
The winners plan to pursue big ideas in areas like space exploration, clean energy, education, robotics and more.
Three live in the Bay Area, including 18-year-old John Burnham, who recently moved from Boston to Atherton. He hopes to use the fellowship to develop methods to extract valuable materials from near earth objects, an ability he said will be critical for successfully colonizing space.
"What I hope to accomplish is to continue to learn the science behind it, to develop some more practical hands-on experience with companies already doing space technology and then to start building (a usable machine)," he said.
When asked if he's worried that he'll miss out on any critical learning in this field -- or in general -- by forgoing college, he called it "a really amusing question."
"That speaks to the assumption that what happens in college is pure, unadulterated learning," he said. "A lot of colleges are not, in my opinion, ideal places to get that really applied, hands on learning that I feel is necessary for this project."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=89687&tsp=1
And here's how one person commented...
Libertarians are so cute. They are deeply anti-intellectual, and reject college because it requires several things Libertarians are bad at: careful, lengthy, in-depth analysis and critical thinking. But more than anything, they fear the most mundane of classes at a typical college: history. Libertarians hate going to college and learning about parts of American history, like the Great Depression, that prove them wrong. As libs are overwhelmingly white males, they also don't like anythign that teaches students about other cultures, or cultural histories. And that's why libbies are often on the forefront of these sorts of anti-intellectual movements. I guess I have one question for these guys: if college isn't necessary, why is it necessary to give these kids 100k ? Shouldn't succeed in the free market without a socialist subsidy?
