20 under 20

[Ahriman238]

Search didn't turn up anything so...

A libertarian group called the Thiel Foundation, founded by semi-famous internet entrepenuer Peter Thiel is offering 24 high school graduates $100,000 and "professional mentoring" to start their own businesses, instead of pursuing higher education. This is meant as a social (sort of)experiment to demonstrate that a college education is overrated.

I can sincerely say that it has already failed as an experiment. There is no control group, the Foundation has already announced precisely the results they want to get, and all of the subjects were cherry-picked. Aside from the breakdown in experimental procedure, what do all of you think of this?

[Jaevric]

It's a pretty stupid experiment. I don't think there's much debate that it's possible for a 20 year old with a really good idea to make a successful business even without a college degree; the real question is whether the average twenty year old would be better off with a college degree or starting his own business.

On top of that, how many 20 year olds have access to a hundred thousand dollars to start a business with? A hundred thousand dollars that the kid doesn't even have to worry about paying back. That's certainly a better deal than student loans.

All this might prove is that if a 20 year old has a really good idea for a business anyway, and someone gives him $100,000 and access to a more experienced businessperson for advice, they can potentially be successful. That's...not much of a surprise.

Pick 24 newly-graduated students at random, offer them $100,000 and a mentorship to start their own business, then see what happens.

[Sarevok]

College is pretty awesome if you want to spend your whole life working for another man.

On the flipside surviving by starting something on your own is extremely difficult. Getting a job is a highly reliable way to live. Unless one is willing to take risks and sleep on cold hard floors for a few years one should not throw away college for sake of entrepreneurship.

[salm]

College is pretty awesome if you want to spend your whole life working for another man.

Huh? Tons of freelancers and entrepreneurs have a university degree. There are a whole bunch of government programs designed specifically to help university graduates open up their own business. At least where I come from.

[Sarevok]

That sounds pretty awesome Salm. This kind of initiaves contribute towards making your country so leading in science and technology.

[Broomstick]

I'd be happier if, instead of saying this is an "experiment", they just say they're going to give 24 young people an alternative to traditional college.

College is not the best course for everyone, and it's time society comes to grips with that (actually, some societies either have, or never lost sight of that fact). This route isn't ideal for everyone, either. However, if the group is carefully selected ("cherry-picked" as one person put it) it may indeed, for some people, be a preferable route to whatever success they seek.

[Serafina]

Not to mention all those doctors and lawyers and independent consulter's and whatnot who have a college degree. Or those journalists or all those people who use their economics degree to run their own bussiness and so on and so on.

Yes, most people with a college degree are hired by some company or the government - that's because that's where the most jobs are, no matter what education you have. And it's certainly much harder to start up a business without one, unless you have the start-up capital right after high-school.

[Covenant]

All they're going to show is that for those who succeed, 100,000 dollars of capital and long-term professional marketing is valuable. Which is hardly surprising. You could just run an "experiment" where you track the total net-worth of fabulously wealthy heiresses as they go through life and avoid college, and then compare them to me, who has no money and had to win scholarships to afford college.

It's pretty ridiculous.

The biggest problem is that while anyone can go to college if they get a scholarship, not everyone can get 100,000 dollars and long-term professional mentoring to start and manage a business. If these folks want to offer that to people, by all means, I'm for that too. Hell, if you want to offer me 100,000 dollars no-strings-attached and let me work it off for 20 years, you'll get a nice return on that. The job market was already so bad I had to start my own business to find a job.

[Simon_Jester]

Well, if Thiel wants to burn up the majority of his fortune offering investment stakes and advice to promising high school students, he is welcome to do so. But somehow I have a hard time seeing him do it with a nontrivial portion of his money.

[sketerpot]

College is not the best course for everyone, and it's time society comes to grips with that (actually, some societies either have, or never lost sight of that fact).

This, right here, is a very nice summary of Thiel's goal. The main purpose of this "20 under 20" program is to generate controversy to get people thinking about the tradeoffs in college versus the various alternatives. It's quite a lot less radical than most news stories make it sound.

[Broomstick]

Personally, I think I would have been better off going to trade school and becoming a carpenter but that's sort of water under the bridge at this point.

[Covenant]

Yeah. We honestly don't need a million more people skipping college to go into some kind of wacky high-end business thing. A lot of people should be tradesmen, which are fine jobs and very respectable and we've currently got a labor shortage and a huge demand for people in the skilled trades. But I doubt Thiel is trying to prove how valuable those kinds of jobs are, so his endeavor is still pretty pointless.

[Winston Blake]

Even if the kids succeeded in every way, it would only prove the value of a university education. Why? Because a documentary on these businesses would show who the kids hired: employees with marketing degrees, employees with engineering & IT degrees, employees with business degrees, employees with law degrees, etc, all milling around doing work while the future kid waltzes around like a bigshot.

Maybe not everyone needs to have a degree - but if they want to make it big they're going to need people who do.

Further, although I think it's true, this would not show that 'some kids are better off doing something other than tertiary education'. You know that whole 'mentorship' thing? Sounds like a business education to me, just a less efficient and more expensive one. I know, why don't we create a system that lets all kids choose to learn business knowledge from experts! Or, to reach more kids at once, these mentors could write books instead of tutoring personally! Oh wait, that's a university business school. And university textbooks.

The fact that this 'experiment' was even proposed suggests a fundamental failure to grasp what a university actually is.

[kaeneth]

Even if the kids succeeded in every way, it would only prove the value of a university education. Why? Because a documentary on these businesses would show who the kids hired: employees with marketing degrees, employees with engineering & IT degrees, employees with business degrees, employees with law degrees, etc, all milling around doing work while the future kid waltzes around like a bigshot.
...

Honestly? If someone had given me $100k to start a buisness when I graduated High School? I'd have hired no one but myself. I'd have paid myself ~$30k for 3 years and spent the rest on equipment.

I'm not saying its the best plan....but its quite probable that they'd hire no one with a degree. Because people with degrees are likely to ask for $40k+/year which means maybe they'd pay for consultants, but that isn't 'hiring people' the way you imply.

That said, I think the experiment is a mislabel. 24 kids got the shot of a lifetime to start a buisness. That is hardly an 'experiment'.