[jackowayed]

I've thought about a similar idea, but a college.

What if someone founded a college that instead of making people go deep into debt, took, less than 1% of their earnings forever.

It could end up attracting a lot of people planning to be homemakers, or at least those planning to get lower-paying jobs like teaching, but it definitely has potential.

An added bonus would be differentiation/branding. Colleges that aren't near the upper echelon go to a lot of effort just to seem special and get potential students to remember who they are because really they're all more-or-less the same. Having something as unique and appealing-sounding as "we're free! ... in a sense" would make sure that people remember them.

[aresant]

Isn't that what PG set up with Y-Combinator ;-) ?

[jackowayed]

Heh, not quite.

This would be a normal college and thus would be able to take people who want to go into any field.

The more I think about this the more I think it has potential. All kinds of interesting things could be products of it. For example, the career services department (or whatever they call the unit that helps people find jobs after they graduate) might be substantially better than at most colleges because it's seen as an investment, not just a nice, but nonessential, way to help their students out.