[bbarthel]

I don't see anything in the article to suggest he is attaching special prestige to his education, instead he seems to be stating that Mr. Thiel would better serve entrepreneurship by simply focusing on all young entrepreneurs and helping them achieve their ideas as opposed to artificially limiting it to teenagers so that he can condition the money on them dropping out of school.

As an example, when I was in college, I received a grant from the Kauffman Foundation( 1 ) to pursue an idea myself and some friends had for a new type of 3-d visualization device. In the end we determined our idea was infeasible as a commercial technology (technical limitations based on our design), but through an arrangement between the Foundation and my college, we were able to work on the prototype and still receive credit so that all of us graduated on time (we were required to use the prototype and lessons learned as a senior project, paper and presentation, along with intermediate documentation to prove we were progressing and continuing our education).

Had we been forced to drop out, we would have failed and not even had a degree to show for it. Had we chosen to drop out, it would have been our decision based on our belief in the idea, instead of as a requirement for pursuing it.

( 1 ) http://www.kauffman.org/about-foundation/foundation-overview...

[edit] formatting.