Peter Thiel.
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Peter Thiel plans to give 20 more young people $100,000 (92,000 euros) to keep them from going to college.
Thiel launched the scholarship in 2010 to encourage students to interrupt their studies and start businesses instead.
The plan was criticized by leading education experts.
Drop out, kids. That is the message of billionaire Peter Thiel expands its scholarship programwhich provides $100,000 each to students who want to skip college and develop a business instead.
Some of the recent applicants plan to start projects in AI and cryptocurrency.
The Paypal founder started the program in 2010 with an initial group of 24 young people. He gave them $100,000 (€92,000) over two years so they could skip college and pursue entrepreneurial ventures. Since its launch, more than 270 people have participated in the program.
Thiel said he originally started the project to prove that the American college system is not for everyone. This view is no longer so far-fetched today, as more and more young people are looking for other paths to success in order to avoid getting into debt.
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Peter Thiel is doubling the scholarships because universities in the USA have become too “woke”.
While workers with a bachelor’s degree earn 31 percent more than those with an associate’s degree and 84 percent more than those with a high school diploma, the cost of college has been steadily rising for decades.
Thiel told the Wall Street Journal that he decided to extend the program because he believed that American universities had become too woke, which inspired him to to encourage young people to stay away from them. “We are of the opinion that it is still an outside game to get people out.â€
Thiel himself has several degrees from Stanford University. Former Harvard President Larry Summers called the effort “the most misguided piece of philanthropy” during a 2013 conference âTech Crunchâ.
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Vivek Wadhwa, a former Washington Post columnist and Harvard researcher, wrote in âTech Crunch“that “Friends don’t let friends take education advice from Peter Thiel,†and advised that the best way to succeed is to get a college degree.
Wadhwa wrote that an “elitist” Ivy League education was unnecessary, but that basic training and “finishing what you started” helped students succeed.
Read the original article in English here.