[cjy]

Of course engineering school deans are going to think dropping out is a bad idea. The guy at Best Buy will also try to convince you to buy a warranty on your flat screen T.V.

There are definitely some good reasons to stay in school, but this article rubbed me the wrong way. Take for example, a couple of the arguments presented:

Argument: You get a lot of valuable social connections from being in school. Counterargument: You will meet others and learn from your peers by surrounding yourself by smart interesting people, but this doesn't have to be at a university. Why not connect with smart ambitious people of all ages that are working in your field? If the main value of elite colleges is that they screen bright students and bring them together for 40K a year, the students are getting ripped off.

Argument: Mark Zuckerberg was successful because he was vetted and educated by Harvard. Counterargument: This seems highly unlikely. No one used Facebook because they knew the developer was Harvard educated. And, Zuckerberg was an accomplished hacker before he came to Harvard.

Argument: Most successful entrepreneurs are not drop outs. Counterargument: That is because most people who try entrepreneurship are not drop outs. A better question is whether drop outs who start businesses are more or less likely to succeed. An even better question, is whether the same person is more likely to succeed if he/she drops out. Unfortunately, the last question is impossible to answer.

[timr]

"Of course engineering school deans are going to think dropping out is a bad idea."

This is an ad hominem, dressed up nicely. And from the article that I just read (maybe we're being A/B tested for ideology?), nearly all of the deans made clear exceptions for exceptional students. What a bunch of higher-education zealots.

You also got the "arguments" wrong. All of them. None of the deans made an argument for greater success due to social connections (Wadwha makes fun of this idea at the top of the article!), none claimed that Zuckerberg was successful "because" of his time at Harvard (one made the argument that he "needed it for vetting", which is a different argument entirely), and none made the argument that "most" entrepreneurs are college grads (...or anything at all, for that matter; except for the rather uncontroversial argument that "most entrepreneurs fail", very few generalizations were made).

The most important arguments were the ones that you ignored:

1) Thiel's "experiment" isn't actually an experiment. It's a vanity exercise that will prove nothing, because it has no controls.

2) Most entrepreneurs fail, but you can easily point to the exceptions to make (fallacious) arguments about the value of education.

3) An engineering degree improves the average outcome for students, even if it doesn't help the exceptional cases.

4) At the companies founded by famous college dropouts, you'd be incredibly hard-pressed to get a job without a college degree.

[cjy]

The first quote wasn't an ad hominem attack because it wasn't directed at the engineering deans, but rather at the author. If you're trying to determine whether people should drop out of school why would you only survey deans to make a point? Moreover, it is perfectly valid to note the conflict of interest a speaker may have. Their incentives don't make their arguments wrong, but it should give us caution before making generalization or relying on their expertise.

I think we're talking past each other to a certain extent. The deans do make some good points. 1-4 are generally true. I just don't think they are sufficient evidence to show that students shouldn't drop out. They are saying that colleges are good social networks and send important signals to employers. My argument is that something is wrong when we are spending 100K on a screening/networking mechanism. Notice that none of the deans said stay in school because of the things you'll learn in the classroom.

[dlo]

"Notice that none of the deans said stay in school because of the things you'll learn in the classroom."

The second-to-last paragraph of Jim Plummer's response seems to say so. Example: "A university education gives the large majority the tools to become innovators and entrepreneurs throughout their lives." He then goes onto extol the benefits of an engineering education even for careers outside engineering.

[grav1tas]

Your suggestion that the deans are pro-college institution because they are deans doesn't necessarily follow. It actually is an ad hominem against the deans because you're trying to weaken the author's point by reducing the weight of a series of supporting claims made by the deans because you claim that the deans are acting out of self-interest (or interest of some educational-industrial complex of which they are a part) when they wrote these statements. Given that one side of this argument likes to frame the educational institution as bad (and sometimes go as far as saying the people in the institution are actively working to further its negative ends), it would be reasonable to interpret your first remarks as an ad hominem attack.

That said, your initial statement doesn't necessarily follow because it could also be the case that the deans became deans because they earnestly believe in the system they're helping to further, and that's why they became deans. Claiming the possibility of bias doesn't entail the presence of bias.

[kenjackson]

You will meet others and learn from your peers by surrounding yourself by smart interesting people, but this doesn't have to be at a university.

Create that community. I fear that is harder done than said, given that none really exists.

No one used Facebook because they knew the developer was Harvard educated.

I don't know if Mark can do Facebook at Harvard and get traction w/o being a Harvard student. At the very least Facebook probably doesn't exist w/o a Harvard -- a collection of young exclusives who are technically saavvy. No Harvard means no Facebook, one way or another.

A better question is whether drop outs who start businesses are more or less likely to succeed.

A better question, IMO, do we need more startups than are currently being created? Imagine if college enrollment is cut in half. And we increase the number of startup companies by a factor of 20x. Is that net good? Will innovation and goodness increase as a result? I'm not sure it will.

It's almost as if the self-selection of having to choose to leave Stanford/Harvard is a good funnel for founders.

[joebadmo]

Wasn't part of FB's initial cachet (for people outside of Harvard) that it was initially exclusive to Harvard? And wasn't Z being at H a prerequisite to H students using FB?

I've always felt like FB's success was due more to good timing and marketing (using recursive network effect) than anything else.

[moultano]

The only reason I signed up for facebook initially in college is because it seemed like it was something officially provided by the school. If nothing else, the fact that it had public defaults for visibility, but limited to an exclusive network struck a balance that college students liked. That would have been harder to do and to understand from outside of a college.