Billionaire Thiel puts up 100 large for higher education dropouts

High-tech billionaire Thiel got famous by putting up money for Facebook. He’s a staunch advocate of economic Darwinism and wears his immense wealth on his sleeve. The Thiel Fellowship is a program he launched in Sept that provides grants of $100,000 that allow students to leave school and sector their technological innovations.

The Thiel Fellowship info

20 entrepreneurs that are younger than 20 could be awarded up to $100,000 in grants with Thiel’s Thiel Fellowship program. Some of the best innovations within the world originated from dropouts from higher education had “ideas that could not wait until graduation.” This is what Thiel explained in a press release. Thiel himself made billions with PayPal, the Clarium hedge fund and Facebook. He talked about Elon Musk who sold Zip2 to Compaq for $307 million after dropping out of college to start it.

What happened after Thiel’s offer

The reaction to Thiel’s $100,000 package to drop out of school has been negative and good. Thiel’s package deflects higher education students from “from the love of knowledge to the love of cash.” That is what Jacob Weisberg at the Slate explained while also saying Thiel’s ego is too large as he tries to encourage students to be like him. Then Business Insider’s Nick Saint said, “it’s ridiculous to suggest that most people who go to higher education implement it from the love of knowledge for its own sake.” Then Reason’s Jesse Walker explains that those in the Thiel Fellowship system will not really be emulating Thiel as he has a graduate degree.

A college viewpoint on Thiel

Higher education, directly confronted by the Thiel Fellowship, has also weighed in. Thiel was invited by Dr. Jeff Cornwall at Belmont University to come visit the programs they have. Cornwall said that there are enough students and alumni entrepreneurs that came back after dropping out because they realized what they were missing, which is why Thiel is coming.

Articles cited

Slate

slate.com/id/2271265/

Business Insider

businessinsider.com/

Reason

reason.com/blog/2010/10/17/jacob-weisberg-vs-the-libertar

Thiel Fellowship

thielfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content and view=article and id=14:the-thiel-fellowship-20-under-20 and catid=1 and Itemid=16