An Internet prince wants you to drop out

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I’ve been thinking about Peter Thiel a lot lately. The more I try to get him off my mind, the more I find myself debating the PayPal founder in mock exchanges in my head.

Yes, Thiel is driving me crazy. The only way I know to rid myself of him is to write about him. So here goes.

I first thought about Thiel at length when I recently watched “Ivory Tower: Is College Worth the Cost?” (CNN Films, 2014). He’s a central figure in the 90-minute documentary that questions the long-held belief that a college education inevitably leads to the good life.

According to Thiel, many, if not most, Americans overvalue the worth of a university degree. Since the mid-2000s, he has wondered whether a college education, in fact, offers sufficient return on investment to justify the tens of thousands of dollars in student loans that many young people take on –– and whether the traditional liberal arts degree remains relevant in a hyper-kinetic, Internet-driven world in which employers purportedly value skills (particularly computer skills) above degrees.

It’s a funny argument for a Silicon Valley prince such as Thiel to make. The 47-year-old is reportedly worth $2.1 billion. He didn’t go the route of Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom dropped out of Harvard. Thiel earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from Stanford. Clearly, he’s gotten his money’s worth from his academic credentials.

Nonetheless, in September 2010 he launched the Thiel Fellows Program, for which he offers $100,000 fellowships to exceptionally gifted students who drop out of college –– or never attend –– and start their own companies. Though they aren’t required to do so, many move to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Thiel mentors them through the kill-or-be-killed jungle that is high-tech big business.

Nearly five years later, the insanely competitive two-year program is going strong, with 20 to 25 new fellows accepted each year. Thiel is making a simple point: There are alternate paths to success besides college. Through the fellowship, he is questioning the value and validity of a university degree.

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