"To question education is really dangerous. It's the absolute taboo..."

<p>*“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.”</p>

<p>...“If Harvard were really the best education, if it makes that much of a difference, why not franchise it so more people can attend? Why not create 100 Harvard affiliates?” he says. “It’s something about the scarcity and the status. In education your value depends on other people failing. Whenever Darwinism is invoked it’s usually a justification for doing something mean. It’s a way to ignore that people are falling through the cracks, because you pretend that if they could just go to Harvard, they’d be fine. Maybe that’s not true.”...</p>

<p>...“We’re saying maybe people at Harvard need to be doing something else. We have to reset what the bar is at the top.”*</p>

<p>Peter</a> Thiel: We’re in a Bubble and It’s Not the Internet. It’s Higher Education.</p>

<p>Why do most [PayPal</a> open jobs](<a href=“https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/ASP/TG/cim_advsearch.asp]PayPal”>https://sjobs.brassring.com/1033/ASP/TG/cim_advsearch.asp) list a bachelor’s degree as a job requirement?</p>

<p>Thiel’s 24 fellowships for students to try some startup idea (with the unstated backup of being able to back to school if it fails) is not a lot compared to hundreds of open jobs at PayPal that require a bachelor’s degree.</p>

<p>Yes, higher education does have problems in often costing too much and not ensuring that students learn enough. But Thiel’s fellowships make little or no difference to most people, who are more likely to be seeking jobs at PayPal or some other company than getting one of those fellowships.</p>

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<p>Successful startup companies, such as Paypal/Ebay, eventually grow to the point of becoming established businesses, with all of the accompanying institutionalized trappings. Microsoft almost surely, and yet ironically, would probably not hire Bill Gates today. Heck, many established companies would probably not hire their own founders or early employees for one of their own jobs. {Mitch Kapor, the founder of Lotus, once had his wife,who ran HR, run an experiment on their own hiring department by sending the resumes of the first 40 employees ever hired by the company, who were precisely the employees who had built the company to where it was, with identifying information changed. Not one of the 40 fictional people was granted an interview. Not a single one.} </p>

<p>But more to your point, Paypal and other established firms can demand college degrees because it is costless for them to do so. College graduates are plentiful, and the companies didn’t pay for those educations. So why not use it as a screen? However, in a future world that Thiel envisions, where many of the best candidates do not have college degrees, companies might drop the requirement for that degree.</p>

<p>In other words, Thiel is proposing to shift the market from one equilibrium point to another. I’m not saying that he will succeed, nor am I necessarily saying that it would be a good idea if he did (I haven’t made up my mind on that one). But it is certainly an interesting idea worth thinking about.</p>

<p>Higher education certainly has its problems. Does that mean being uneducated is preferable?</p>

<p>I think the point isn’t to say uneducation is preferred, but a different kind of education. I think what Peter Thiel is trying to do is to get academia in [serious] competition with other options for students, which will probably either cause universities to fail or make them better (the latter is much more likely I’d say).</p>

<p>As they say, nothing wrong with some healthy competition. What’s unhealthy is universities having no competition and then stagnating. Still, they’ve been the best option we’ve had, but I’m nowhere near convinced that it’s the best option possible in our current society.</p>

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<p>Thiel could have more effect on more people than his “fellowship to drop out of college” publicity stunt by changing PayPal’s hiring policies to at least be more flexible on the subject of requiring bachelor’s degrees. It might actually help PayPal exploit a likely-to-be-undervalued part of the labor market (those who are uncredentialed but well-educated in the desired area through self-education or whatever).</p>

<p>for some reason it’s cool for some billionaires who attended, and maybe even graduated from elite schools, to then rip on their schools and the higher ed structure. However I doubt they’ll send their kids to state schools.</p>

<p>it’s somewhat in the same vein as how many people say I didn’t learn anything in college I’m successful because of hard work and what I learned on the job. how about take away that college and then see if the outcome is still good.</p>

<p>Asking for a college degree provides a cheap, quick and easy filter. When you advertise jobs, you can get zillions of applicants and it can be onerous to sift through them. You look for some auto filters knowing that you may filter out some good possibilities and maybe even some gems. You do it to make the search easier so you can go along with your business. </p>

<p>When I had to hire secretaries (really typists) in the dark ages, I got hundreds of candidates. The only way to quickly screen was to use a high school typing lab and have them type up a sheet. For the first cut, we just watched them type. Any that looked hesitant and slow, were immediately cut. Too bad for the slow learners who would develop into excellent typists. We wanted fast learners on any equipment. I didn’t even correct half the typed sheets which saved me a lot of time. Then, I would disqualify at a certain point of mistakes, eliminating even more candidates. </p>

<p>It wasn’t until I got to the 5 best candidates, that personal qualities came into play. </p>

<p>So it would be for positions where college degrees really are not needed. My friend who is a human resources head is the first to admit this. But by looking at certain attributes on the app including college degree, he keeps the number of apps down to a manageable level.</p>

<p>I have seen many ads for receptionists and other office positions that never before said associate degree or up. When I asked why at one human resource office (medical), they said high school graduates aren’t what they were before and with at least an associates degree, “maybe” they can write or spell. I thought the somewhat veiled sarcasm was not needed, but over time, saw what they meant. For many, a 2 year or 4 year degree is equal to some high school graduates of earlier years. I had 3 friends start in a bank out of high school 25years a go and have moved quite a bit up the ladder without an advanced degree, I don’t think that would happen any more.</p>

<p>It also does narrow the pool as stated earlier when so many have degrees. It’s like in a PA program a friends son was applying too…admissions told her we don’t need all 3.8 or 4.0 stats to have good candidates, but it narrows the pool which is growing every year.</p>

<p>$100K from Thiel for not going to college? Nice gig if you can get it. But what does that have to do with the millions of other under-20 kids that he didn’t give any money to? How would remaining uneducated benefit them?</p>

<p>This is an interesting experiment, but I don’t see what point it will prove beyond the narrow confines of the program, nor how it will lead to a useful General Theory of Entrepeneurship, since the vast majority of kids will NOT have some benefactor showering them with hundreds of thousands of dollars to go out there and follow their dreams.</p>

<p>Thiel’s publicity stunt is inapplicable to the great majority of 20 year olds. Of course, those 24 could always just go back to school if their ventures don’t work out (most schools tend to be friendly to readmitting those who dropped out while in good academic and financial standing).</p>

<p>The actual problems faced by a large number of 18-20 year olds with respect to education (high cost of post-secondary education, unrigorous curriculum with limited learning in many subjects, need for a degree as a credential with little credit given to self-education by those motivated to self-educate, etc.) have all been written about before (NSSE, The Five Year Party, etc.) and show up on these forums every so often.</p>

<p>Thiel is like one of those city people who move into a nice quiet community, and then complain about all the outsiders moving in. He went to Stanford and Stanford Law School. What a phony.</p>

<p>Ivy League education is, IMO, what game theorists call “expensive signalling”, like a BMW or a peacock’s tail. It’s something rare and expensive that sets you apart from the crowd. If they made a hundred Harvards, the in crowd would just move to something else to make them stand out. </p>

<p>I like Thiel’s idea, but I doubt his 20 under 20 project will work out, and I am certain that it can’t be scaled up to encompass thousands of ordinary Joes and Janes.</p>

<p>Higher education is filling a vacuum created by the loss of jobs in skilled manufacturing. Many teenagers are going to college because they have no idea what else to do, other than risk getting killed in the army. </p>

<p>I live in farm country. The average farmer around here is in his 50s. How many of them do you think send their kids to ag school, let alone directly into farming from high school? I’ve just about given up trying to find a really skilled carpenter or even a house painter who knows what he’s doing. The shade tree mechanic is a dying breed. A 300 year old culture of practical, daily, independent problem-solving is dying away … or nearly so. </p>

<p>[The</a> last word: The philosopher with a wrench - The Week](<a href=“http://theweek.com/article/index/97867/the-last-word-the-philosopher-with-a-wrench]The”>http://theweek.com/article/index/97867/the-last-word-the-philosopher-with-a-wrench)</p>

<p>Getting an education is about being educated not about getting a job or starting a business. Those who can attend an elite college will do fine economically even if they don’t attend, but they will not have the thrill that education can bestow upon one.</p>

<p>My favorite article on this subject: [The</a> University of Chicago Magazine: October 2003](<a href=“http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml]The”>The University of Chicago Magazine: October 2003)</p>

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<p>I don’t think the point is to encompass thousands of ordinary students. This is the way things go I think. At one point Harvard too was a new concept, and it wasn’t as bad as it is now (in terms of opportunity cost for accepted students, and all of the side effects for others who were rejected). Eventually, if this idea takes off, it too could get to be a big, slow system with lots of bureaucracy trying to make people into entrepreneurs. The important thing is that new stuff keeps happening and replacing the old because that’s the only way we can avoid that sort of thing (unless some institutions pay extra attention to this stagnation).</p>

<p>“Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States.”</p>

<p>How I wish that this were truer, or at least true of more Americans. A lot of us have contempt for education and the educated.</p>

<p>At any rate, Thiel knows very well that scarcity isn’t the only reason you can’t franchise Harvard. It’s because the world doesn’t have 100 Harvard faculties, nor 650,000 Harvard undergrads. It’s the people that matter, not the concept. (There’s a good argument to be made that virtually every private college in the country is a franchise of the concept.) Harvard could certainly fill 12,000 slots without diluting the quality of the pool – probably more. But not 100 times more. Maybe someday, if we’re really locating and developing all the talent in every country, there will be that many. Not yet.</p>

<p>I think formal college education is unnecessary for the top 25% and the bottom 25% (rough estimations, but you get my point) of students.</p>

<p>The top 25% are generally too smart for the typical college environment. They can self-study all the skills they need and still be more successful than the middle 50% who went to college. At my college, Stanford, quite a few (way more than I had expected) already have their own tech start ups (3 months before classes even start!). These people will probably just need college for a year to meet other people with similar interests, and then afterwards will just cruise along to their degree, learning nothing that they couldn’t have taught themselves in a day.</p>

<p>The bottom 25% lack the discipline needed to be at college, and to compete for the sort of jobs that require (and really require) college degrees. Technical school would suit these students very well, but unfortunately society seems to tell them that they’re above going to one.</p>

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You can go to the surgeon who self-studied, and tell us how it goes.</p>

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There was a time in America when most colleges were associated with preparation for the ministry. To some degree that sense of calling was carried over into the learned professions like medicine and law, and much later, the pursuit of Big Science.</p>

<p>Let’s be clear: what Thiel is talking about – at best – is creating private wealth, and maybe even a lot of jobs further down the food-chain. It’s a commendable goal for the twenty people involved and if that’s what it takes to jump-start the next Facebook or Hewlett-Packard – more power to them. But, let’s not confuse that with the Space Program or the Marshal Plan or even with the invention of the internet. We still need a literate and humane, well-educated, elite. Regardless of what we plan to do with the “top 25%” of the country’s twenty year-olds, they will obviously take care of themselves. It’s the rest of the country I worry about.</p>