Dive Brief:
- Nine fellows of the 24 whom Peter Thiel paid in 2010 to drop out of school have been interviewed by the Chronicle of Higher Education, and eight of them say they learned more about themselves and about business than if they hadn’t dropped out.
- Thiel, the famous venture capitalist behind PayPal and Facebook, awarded grants of up to $100,000 for each of the 24 fellows in the two-year program, all younger than 20 years old at the time.
- Most of the nine fellows told the Chronicle that college had been rewarding, but they didn’t feel that they needed to finish school.
Dive Insight:
The Thiel program offers interesting fodder for a debate over the value of higher education for entrepreneurs who chafe at the restrictions of college life. But would-be students in the program are offered so many advantages — from the Thiel grants to industry connections to the cache of being selected — that they are hardly representative of the average entrepreneurs who drop out to pursue their dreams. Schools like Stanford University, Colgate University, and Case Western Reserve University have started their own incubator programs to appeal to student entrepreneurs who want to launch a startup. According to the Thiel Foundation, the 83 fellows in four years of the program have raised $72 million from investors, sold start-up companies for $17 million, and produced $29 million in revenue. Six people went back to college after the program, and two quit the program.