Myself being a college dropout (though not from some prestigious university), this all sounds a bit foolish to me:
Before the crowd of technology enthusiasts, he sketched out his plan: grants of up to $100,000 each for up to 20 people under the age of 20 to "stop out of school" and pursue their passion.
Maybe I'm just being sore and jealous, but my decision to drop out was not for the prospects of pursuing my passions. Rather, it was based purely upon economic and temporal constraints: in order to go to school, I needed a ton of money; in order to get money I needed to work full-time; in order to work full-time, I needed to take less and less classes. The fact that I later ended up pursuing my passions was basically out of necessity, not because some investor said he'd been thinking about it for a year and thought it might be better to leave, and oh by the way here's $100K.
Maybe others are not as smart and enlightened as you and foolishly spending money their family could ill-afford on full-time classes that would grant them a career that can barely pay off the costs involved in their education - and Peter Thiel announcement of $100k reward for dropping out could be a wake up call.
Ironically, the vast majority of Thiel fellows were studying subjects which put them on a straightforward track for getting a lucrative career (thus easily justifying the costs involved).
The Thiel Fellowship would be simultaneously much more interesting and controversial if it targeted students at second rate private universities where the value proposition of studying is much murkier.
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Myself being a college dropout (though not from some prestigious university), this all sounds a bit foolish to me:
Maybe I'm just being sore and jealous, but my decision to drop out was not for the prospects of pursuing my passions. Rather, it was based purely upon economic and temporal constraints: in order to go to school, I needed a ton of money; in order to get money I needed to work full-time; in order to work full-time, I needed to take less and less classes. The fact that I later ended up pursuing my passions was basically out of necessity, not because some investor said he'd been thinking about it for a year and thought it might be better to leave, and oh by the way here's $100K.
Maybe others are not as smart and enlightened as you and foolishly spending money their family could ill-afford on full-time classes that would grant them a career that can barely pay off the costs involved in their education - and Peter Thiel announcement of $100k reward for dropping out could be a wake up call.
Ironically, the vast majority of Thiel fellows were studying subjects which put them on a straightforward track for getting a lucrative career (thus easily justifying the costs involved).
The Thiel Fellowship would be simultaneously much more interesting and controversial if it targeted students at second rate private universities where the value proposition of studying is much murkier.
I doubt all those CEOs and VCs would be interested in someone outside of the MIT etc. circle.
Not sure where you are located but did you try community college? In some states they are quite subsidized.