
An open letter to Peter Thiel - jaybol
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/an-open-letter-to-peter-thiel/2011/09/14/gIQAUexrjL_story.html
======
ramanujan

      So, here is my challenge to you: Why don’t you put your 
      money and energy behind your convictions?
    

First, Thiel is already doing this with 20 Under 20. Second, Founders Fund
just led a $33M round for Knewton [0], which is doing adaptive education.

Third, the extent to which the beneficiaries of usurious student loans now
find themselves on the back foot is amusing. "First they laugh at you, then
they fight you..."

Wadhwa has realized that he can't simply shame the critics of higher ed into
silence (as he's attempted for the last few years [1]), so now he's saying:

    
    
      "We can now make education affordable and pervasive."
    

I don't think Wadhwa understands what this means. It means things like ai-
class.org, ml-class.org, and db-class.org replacing large lecture classes. It
means companies doing a lot more stuff like MCSE, and a lot less stuff like
paying for people to do two years of an MBA. It means coworking spaces like
biocurious at $150/month [2] replacing the expensive (and inaccessible)
university labs.

Most of all, it means obsolescing the higher ed business model of charging
$60,000 per year [3].

In other words, while it's refreshing to hear people in higher ed finally
start to acknowledge that the benefits they provide need to be greater than
their costs, they don't understand that the solution involves the end of
college as we know it.

How could it be otherwise when there is now a six-order-of-magnitude gap
between the cost of watching a Khan Academy video ($0) and the cost of dozing
through the same content in a Harvard lecture hall ($250,000)?

[0] [http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/13/founders-fund-33-million-
le...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/13/founders-fund-33-million-learning-
knewton/)

[1] <http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/25/students-stay-in-school/>

[2] <http://biocurious.org>

[3]
[http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/cost...](http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/cost.html)

~~~
flourpower
But Harvard provides incremental value over Khan academy by serving as a
networking tool and a credentialing mechanism.

~~~
ramanujan
For now, that's still true.

But LinkedIn/github/etc. are starting to provide better networks. As an
employer, I give more credence to a kid with a good github account than I do
to even a CS major from Harvard.

As for credentialing, that is the next big step. It is already the case that
if you see a CV with Google or Facebook on it, it doesn't matter whether that
person has a college degree. You know they've been vetted by an institution of
comparable prestige to Harvard.

Solving the vetting and credentialing problem is going to be important, but
it's not insuperable by any means. For example, ai-class.org, db-class.org,
and ml-class.org are providing certificates of accomplishment. Any kid who
nails Andrew Ng's CS229 class is definitely someone to consider over a liberal
arts major, or even most CS undergrads.

~~~
andylei
on the question of credentials:

ootachi's comment is spot on. big companies like google, microsoft, and
goldman sachs get way too many applications to not care about degrees.

yeah, if you filter by college degrees, you're going to miss out on some great
candidates, but there are a lot of great candidates out there. you don't need
all of them to find a great hire. its simply not practical to do in depth
examinations of every candidate. a good github account? big companies get so
many resumes that they don't even finish reading many of the resumes, so
forget about looking at code on github.

maybe in the future, certain online universities may get enough general
recognition that merely the presence of that university on a resume will pick
up the interest of HR people, but currently, that's nowhere close to true. and
until that happens, most kids will prefer harvard to taking classes online.

plus, its not like its mutually exclusive. a kid from harvard can have a good
github account.

on the question of networks:

linkedin is a joke. i'm way more likely to get a job or start a business with
someone i knew in college than someone off of linkedin.

github is a lot better, but its a pretty restricted space. you can get
interviews for lots of kinds of jobs by going to harvard. programming is
probably all you can get with a good github account (and probably not at
really big companies). maybe if you're 18 and you know that all you want to is
programming, maybe you should take a bunch of classes online, but the majority
of 18 year olds probably want more flexibility.

~~~
jimbokun
"good github account? big companies get so many resumes that they don't even
finish reading many of the resumes, so forget about looking at code on
github."

They might be better off not accepting resumes and just recruiting people with
outstanding github accounts.

~~~
xenophanes
A google recruiter emailed me and asked me to submit a resume after seeing my
ruby talk list posts.

So, they already do that kind of thing :)

------
byrneseyeview
This is just silly. I started reading this article with a couple biases in
mind: I can't ever remember reading anything by Wadhwa and thinking anything
other than "That is the conventional wisdom, yes," and Thiel is correct that
college is a bubble ([http://www.byrnehobart.com/blog/higher-education-the-
next-bi...](http://www.byrnehobart.com/blog/higher-education-the-next-big-bad-
bubble/))

But Wadhwa's advice is just ludicrous. If it's 2005, and you claim that
housing is a bubble, the proper response isn't "Go put your money where your
mouth is: start manufacturing mobile homes, or tents, or something." It's a
non-sequitur: people are overpaying for education _because they treat it as an
asset_ : if you double the sticker price, buyers react by assuming that
they're buying twice as much of it.

The right responses to a bubble: short it, or at least structure your life so
you're not dependent on it. In real estate, that means renting rather than
buying; in higher ed, that means dropping out and investing your efforts into
tasks that better measure your underlying talents, and don't cost tens of
thousands of dollars.

It's just a weird defense of the status quo: nowhere does Wadhwa ask questions
like: have we overestimated how many people should go to college? Are we even
willing to tell people that they'd be happier (and society would be better
off) if they became electricians or plumbers? It seems like Thiel's framework
is flexible enough to imagine a country where 50% of the population earns a
masters, or where only 5% pursue a BA. Whereas Wadhwa's framework is robust
enough to imagine a swing of half a standard deviation away from whatever the
status quo is.

 _Full disclosure: it's a little early to tell, but I'm fairly successful; I
dropped out of college my freshman year._

~~~
fleitz
Congrats on running against the herd. If you keep running against it you'll be
wildly successful. I went to college for a semester after I already had a job
programming, dropped out after that semester. The only decent thing about
college was that I met a fair number of people willing to pay me to learn what
they paid to learn. (eg. do their homework)

Due to good luck with the real estate bubble and getting paid to program
instead of paying to learn it I posit that the personal cost of my degree
would be around $400,000.

    
    
      $200,000 in lost wages
      $150,000 in lost in tax free capital gains
      $40,000 - $50,000 for the degree
    

I don't need someone else to give me a piece of paper that says I'm 'educated'
I'd rather take the dollar fifty in late fees at the library. I can read
myself, I don't need to pay a professor $200,000 a year to read me a book.

~~~
adbge
How did you find your first job?

~~~
fleitz
My first ever job was assembling lawn mowers at a local shop at 14, before
that I was selling software downloaded from select BBSes. From there I went
into making pizzas and finally stacking boxes in a cold storage warehouse.
Most of that stuff was from pounding the pavement looking for work.

My first technical job was doing dial-up tech support I found that job over
IRC. Who knew typing +++ATH0 into mIRC could get you a job?

From there I worked tech support for the local cable company, and then wrote
them some scheduling software in my spare time. After that they had me program
instead of answer the phone.

I subscribe to the garbage man theory of value, do the jobs no one else wants
to do but are essential to society. Avoid any job that seems glamouros it
usually pays like crap.

~~~
palish
> I subscribe to the garbage man theory of value, do the jobs no one else
> wants to do but are essential to society. Avoid any job that seems glamouros
> it usually pays like crap.

As a (former?) game developer, I can say this is spot-on.

~~~
fleitz
Spot on if you write A* for a game company woopty do, if you write A* for a
delivery company you just saved them millions.

------
andrewparker
Many of the online learning solutions quoted throughout this comment thread
are excellent for people who are autodidactic (and I suspect a vastly
disproportionate % of the HN audience are autodidactic).

But, for everyone else who lack the will power, discipline, attention span for
self-education, college is a great way to structure higher education. College
is more than just a piece of paper, it's an opportunity to explore new subject
matters and grow both intellectually and socially.

College isn't for everyone. Most private colleges are too expensive to be
affordable to 90% of the attendees. But, nearly every state offers a high
quality public university at 1/10th the price, so if cost is the main reason
why college is taking such criticism in this forum, then I'd agree in merit,
but I'd encourage more students to consider public college options instead of
skipping college all together.

~~~
jseliger
_Many of the online learning solutions quoted throughout this comment thread
are excellent for people who are autodidactic (and I suspect a vastly
disproportionate % of the HN audience are autodidactic).

But, for everyone else who lack the will power, discipline, attention span for
self-education, college is a great way to structure higher education._

This is a great and accurate comment; it reminds me of what I wrote about in
"Policies have consequences: Teacher edition"
([http://jseliger.com/2011/03/06/policies-have-consequences-
te...](http://jseliger.com/2011/03/06/policies-have-consequences-teacher-
edition/)), in response to another HN thread.

The gap between the rhetoric I see on HN regarding education and what I see in
classrooms is so vast as to be amazing. Many if not most people simply won't
do something educational or vaguely educational unless there's some kind of
external structure in place to make them do it—for more on this phenomenon,
see Dan Ariely's book _Predictably Irrational_. The HN commenters who are
wildly self-motivated and, as you say, auto-didactic, are the exception.

Which is great, by the way, and, as many commenters point out, the Internet is
a great way for to achieve educational and intellectual goals. What the
commenters miss is one thing: it's great _for the highly motivated and
interested_. For everyone else, it doesn't hurt, but it's also not a
substitute.

~~~
xenophanes
K-12 schooling (plus "because I said so" and "asking why too much is annoying"
style parenting) is one of the main factors creating people without motivation
who are alienated from learning.

People aren't born with original sin. They don't always suck. It's not innate.
Their educators fail them, fail to teach them how to learn, fail to teach them
that learning doesn't have to hurt, but instead convince them that learning
does hurt through years of suffering, boredom, and not learning much.

So, you're right that most people at age 18 are not very good candidates for a
life path that requires initiative, motivation, self-learning, etc... But that
doesn't mean the current system is the right thing for those people. It not
only does a pretty terrible job of helping them at a high price (college
doesn't teach them how to learn, how to love learning, how to take
initiative), it created a significant part of their problem due to systematic
failures in approach to education.

Learning is inherently awesome, but schools (and parents and culture) convince
people otherwise.

------
tokenadult
As I've seen him do all too often before, here Wadhwa writes with too little
analysis of the situation he is commenting on. Right now, there is a status
quo of HUGE subsidies for higher education. Higher education is second only to
K-12 education as a line item in the budget of my state and other states. When
billions of dollars extracted from taxpayers--including taxpayers who have no
prospect of ever attending college--are injected into the current system, it
is little wonder that some people have trouble imagining any different system,
and most people who try to set up alternatives to the system are doomed to
failure. "The endowments of schools and colleges have necessarily diminished
more or less the necessity of application in the teachers. Their subsistence,
so far as it arises from their salaries, is evidently derived from a fund
altogether independent of their success and reputation in their particular
professions." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Part 3, Article II
(1776) "In modern times [as contrasted with ancient times] the diligence of
public teachers is more or less corrupted by the circumstances which render
them more or less independent of their success and reputation in their
particular professions. Their salaries, too, put the private teacher, who
would pretend to come into competition with them, in the same state with a
merchant who attempts to trade without a bounty in competition with those who
trade with a considerable one. . . . The privileges of graduation, besides,
are in many countries . . . obtained only by attending the lectures of the
public teachers. . . . The endowment of schools and colleges have, in this
manner, not only corrupted the diligence of public teachers, but have rendered
it almost impossible to have any good private ones." -- Adam Smith, The Wealth
of Nations, Book V, Part 3, Article II (1776)

------
mmaunder
Education in the USA is a massive financial scam, whether or not you think
formalized and standardized education is a good idea. I'm with Thiel on this.

From Wadhwa's bio:

Vivek Wadhwa is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California-Berkley
School of Information, Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship
and Research Commercialization, Exec in Residence at Duke University’s Pratt
School of Engineering, Senior Research Associate at Harvard University’s Labor
and Worklife Program, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Emory University’s
Halle Institute of Global Learning, and faculty member and advisor at
Singularity University.

Vivek declare your income from Berkley, the CERC, Duke, Harvard, Emory and
Singularity and we'll be happy to explore how much your lifestyle could be
impacted by Thiel's point of view.

~~~
andylei
just because someone is biased does not mean they are wrong

~~~
learc83
This is true. Most worthwhile ideas/opinions are developed by people who feel
strongly about a subject, otherwise why would they take the time in the first
place.

However, pointing out potential bias is still appropriate.

------
DanielBMarkham
_...So, here is my challenge to you: Why don’t you put your money and energy
behind your convictions?..._

I am just another internet commenter, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
All I'm doing is repeating what I've read and heard.

But if I had a nickel for every time somebody suggested that you could start
with the end goal in mind, then somehow _invent_ your way there, I'd have
several dollars.

The more general your investment strategy, the more likely you will find
something that works. So at the most general, say some kind of web app or
service, you still have only a 1-in-10 or 1-in-20 chance of hitting anything.
And that's with all the other variables stacked your way.

This isn't a magic trick. Just because Thiel has done so well in many areas
doesn't mean you can point him at a random problem and expect something
useful. If you're a guy who wants to fund new startups in solar-powered mobile
education, good luck! You're going to need it. You've already constrained
yourself to unimaginably high odds without even getting started.

I used to see this same kind of reasoning applied to landing on the moon. For
years, whenever there was a tough problem, some yahoo would come out of the
woodwork and say something like "If we could put a man on the moon, surely we
can do X" And you could put whatever you wanted into X.

As it turns out, there are a lot of Xes which we cannot solve, no matter how
many men walked on the moon. And looking back, even putting them on the moon
was a lot tougher than we thought. We managed to work out the tech and lost
the will to continue the mission. Not all impossible obstacles are technology-
related.</rant>

I'm sure the author meant well, and his call for folks to help out education
is a good one. We need all the help we can get. That kind of rhetoric is just
a pet peeve of mine.

------
fleitz
The issue is not education but schooling. We don't invest very heavily in
education but spend inordinate amounts of money on schooling. How many people
could be given an education for the price of a building with someone's name on
it?

Once a child is taught to read and write, basic arithmetic, and critical
thinking, they should have the tools necessary to teach themselves most
subjects. It's easy to fix education, it's difficult to fix schooling.

<http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/gatto2.1.1.html>

"Self-evaluation – the staple of every major philosophical system that ever
appeared on the planet – is never a factor in these things. The lesson of
report cards, grades, and tests is that children should not trust themselves
or their parents, but must rely on the evaluation of certified officials.
People need to be told what they are worth."

------
ahsanhilal
In my opinion, having watched parts of the debate, Vivek Wadhwa and his
colleague were setup to fail in the debate. It is not necessarily because they
themselves were wrong but because the way the argument and the debate were
presented. Given the massive amount of problems with Higher-ed, it is very
easy to argue against it by pointing out the obvious and the non-trivial
problems. As such, Wadhwa was always on the backfoot trying to defend
something which has inherent flaws.

If you turn the tables, and have Peter Thiel provide a solid policy
prescription and then have Wadhwa poke holes, I think they would easily come
on top in the debate.

------
mchusma
I thought the comment to "put your money where your mouth is" was interesting,
given that Peter Thiel has done exactly that: funded programs that provide
alternatives to college. Not the end all solution, but between his money and
the time he has spent bringing the debate into the national light its hard to
say he isn't doing exactly that.

------
munin
I don't understand how the naysayers of higher education can argue that any
amount of viewing lectures can replace legitimate interaction with an expert
in the field.

I've taken a lot of classes where I could watch a video of the professor
lecture 100 times and be completely lost without the ability to interrupt and
ask "excuse me, but how did you go from the base case to the inductive case"
or "could you explain that more".

If you take STEM classes where the class size is under 40, i.e. upper division
classes, you are both able to do this, and you almost NEED to do it. I really
don't see people learning operating system design, complex analysis, abstract
analysis, circuit design, and organic chemistry, from Khan Academy ...

------
Shenglong
I find it a little silly that people _still_ think the problem in education
lies with not adopting modern technology.

I'll say this again: the problem with modern education lies with _bureaucracy_
and _operational inefficiency_. <http://www.uwo.ca/> is a wonderful example. I
feel like I should write a more detailed post about this.

I actually took the initiative to write several angry letters to the
administration, and eventually got a meeting with the Registrar's office.
Among other things, I told them about <http://www.schedulizer.com> which is
pretty much everywhere in the USA already. Their response: "Well, if it
doesn't cost us anything, we don't see any problems, and we don't need to do
anything, we can potentially allow it to be implemented it in 3-4 years."

------
0003
>"I stressed that children gain a lot more from college than just the
education."

Therein lies part of the problem. We treat 19-22 year olds as children.

------
DjMojoRisin
A University allows you to explore your interested in a nice structured
manner, allowing you to get feedback from respected professionals and though
leaders in different fields. It also gives you a chance to try out your hand
at different fields, and figure out which ones you are good at, and where you
can be successful in the future.

These are what make education important and essential....

However, if you know what you want, then you obviously don't need University
to make you successful.

~~~
randomdata
What I never understood is why college and success always come up in the same
discussion. College is not an investment, it is a _pastime_.

Some people love music and so they start a band. If they are good at what they
do, they might find financial success from their efforts. While the potential
is there, you would be laughed at for calling a band an investment in your
future.

And yet, college is no different. It is a place for people to exercise their
passions and collaborate with others who share in the same. Just like the
band, if you are good at what you do, you might find financial success by
being in college. Or you might not. It doesn't matter – you are not there for
that reason anyway.

College is an awesome place. People should go. But they should be going for
the right reasons, not some made up idea that you can buy your way into
success. You cannot and will not.

~~~
jmj42
The statistics seem to disagree. The most recent report from the census bureau
(<http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf>) indicates the completion
of a bachelors degree almost doubles the average earning.

Of course these are statistics, thus broad generalizations, but there is a
strong correlation between education level and (monetary) success. Certainly
there are exceptional individuals out there who will be able to achieve great
success without the aid of a college education, the computer industry is full
of examples, but for the average person, that just isn't the case.

I live and work on the campus of one of the top research universities in the
U.S. (#19 in the list above), I have yet to meet a student who's here for the
party. Sure, they have fun now-and-then, but they're here for the education.
The vast majority of the undergrads would have a difficult time making it past
a phone screen with companies like Google, Microsoft, my startup, etc. On the
other hand, those who make it through UIUC's intense CS or ECE programs can
compete with anyone with 5 years of experience.

I guess my point is, not only do the stats back up the claim that more
education leads to more (financial) success, so does my individual experience.

~~~
orangecat
_The most recent report from the census bureau
(<http://www.census.gov/prod/2004pubs/p20-550.pdf>) indicates the completion
of a bachelors degree almost doubles the average earning._

This can also be explained by a signalling effect (having a degree
demonstrates to employers that you'll be a good employee) or a selection
effect (smart/responsible people are much more likely to get a degree, but
they'd be successful even if they didn't). In either of those cases, society
would be collectively better off with less emphasis on formal education.

~~~
jmj42
That doesn't follow.

Your fist statement "having a degree demonstrates to employers that you'll be
a good employee" indicates that there is value in obtaining a degree. That is,
you are more likely to get a well paying job if you have one. As a side note,
my experience (family members who are HR directors) is that this is very
likely true. However, the effect that this has on the statistics is a real
effect, and must be considered when determining the value of obtaining a
degree.

Your second statement could certainly be a confounding factor when it comes to
the stats, but really doesn't support the claim that society would be
collectively better off with less emphasis on formal education. Further, it
implies, what I believe to be, an unlikely claim. That is that the majority of
graduates would have been successful without the university experience.

I should note here, that I do not, necessarily, support the status quo. I'm a
big fan of programs like 20 under 20, YC, and other micro-funding type
programs, and would love to see these types of programs expanded. The
university systems of the world are in dire need of reformation, but that
doesn't mean tossing the entire thing out.

Changing the way education works has always been a long, slow process, but
changes are starting to happen. Advocating for a ripe-and-replace "solution"
will only cause the current apparatus to close ranks and take a defensive
posture. We need to work with the education systems, break through that
resistance to change, and move to a system that better suits the needs of
today's students, which do differ from students of the past.

~~~
orangecat
_Your fist statement "having a degree demonstrates to employers that you'll be
a good employee" indicates that there is value in obtaining a degree._

Yes, to the individual. But it creates an arms race scenario where everyone is
induced to spend more resources than is socially optimal. Bryan Caplan
addresses this in more detail at
[http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/me_and_the_retu....](http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/06/me_and_the_retu.html).

~~~
jmj42
The problem with Caplan is that he fails to prove that signaling is socially
detrimental. The signaling theory makes sense, and I accept that it could be
at work, but I'm not convinced that signaling is inherently bad, nor that
there isn't intrinsic value in higher education.

Further Caplan tends to focus on liberal arts education, and ignores hard
science and engineering. This, of course, means that only part of the
education equation is being considered.

I fear, (and this is at risk of completely throwing my argument off the rails
with fallacy), that what may be at work (Caplan) is more a case of dogmatic
adherence to libertarian ideology. With a lack of demonstrable social
implications, signaling becomes largely irrelevant as an argument against the
system, as it is.

------
ErrantX
Oh cool; higher education. My hobby horse.

Here's the thing.. all of these statements are _true_ :

\- Higher education can give you a great professional career path

\- Higher education can give you social skills

The problem is this; there is a third option, which is not to go into higher
education and to do something vocational. Unfortunately we live in a world
where this is a _worse_ option.

That is fucking unbelievable.

I just got someone in to do a bit of extension work on my house. It looks
great, it is precise craftsmanship from someone who has worked at it his whole
life. He learned it vocationally and worked his way up to a pretty successful
living. OK, so he is not making millions, but neither do most graudates.

Here in the UK, at least, it is assumed you are aiming to go to university and
get a degree. In my time it was pretty bad, I think now it is even worse.

That's such a worrying idea; I mean, if everyone is a high flying management
executive, who the hell are they managing?

Kids are sold this idea that you have to go and get a degree and then your
life will pan out for you. What a joke; you can hardly blame students for
being dissillusioned when they realise that they now have a stonking debt, and
there are still no guarantees.

I'm not criticising the risk of doing higher education on debt, just that we
lie to our younger generations and pretend that it is a done deal if they just
get through a couple years are uni.

Fucking stupid.

We need to refocus. Going from school at 16 to college to learn, say, graphic
design is awesome. Except as a society we are supposed to roll our eyes and go
"oh, college.. right."

I myself fall into the second of my bullet points; my career now is entirely
through finding a job for my hobby skills, learning a new "trade" (digital
forensics) on the job, and working my way up. Sure, I learned a lot about
critical thinking in my degree, but the real takeaway was earning some
friends, developing some social skills, making connections, letting myself go
for a bit (uptight as a kid, sigh..). My career is entirely self-made at this
point (learning programming myself, before uni., Learning forensics. Learning
business acumen. etc.) - there are many many similar people out there but
because I went to university I must be somehow awesome at this! here's the
joke - my grade was about average because I barely turned up for lectures,
having more interesting things to do :)

The aggravating thing is that I look at really smart, capable people being
passed over because they never went to university. Because it is ingrained,
now, that for any vocation there is a degree for it.

The education revolution, when it comes, doesn't have much to do with cost.
But with perception.

~~~
orky56
Peter Theil's partner in the debate was Charles Murray. He was actually
advocating for a new system of education that emulates the vocational/trade
idea for pretty much all subjects. He says that every topic and subject you
learn should be learned through post-secondary education (2 years instead of 4
years) and then followed by a certification exam. Lastly and perhaps most
importantly would be an apprenticeship to actually perfect the craft in the
field with someone more knowledgeable.

My personal issue with this whole debate is which are we referring to.
Potentially college-bound students who are HN readers and have the capacity to
understand how to be didactic/resourceful AND know which field to enter, are
probably the ones who will probably not benefit as much from college as other
students. This group is less than 1% of college-bound students. Yet all these
debates and discussions are focused on them. Thiel with his 20 under 20 and
Bienen at Northwestern are catering to the top few.

What about the rest? Those who are not sure what they want to do. Those who
need some formal education to actually learn something. College is for this
majority. Yes, an improved, affordable college that focuses more on career
skills would be better. But whatever state it's in, these students need to be
there to escape low-paying jobs when they themselves are ready to pursue more
knowledge-based careers. /rant

P.S. It really was an exciting debate to see in person, especially the part
where Vivek Wadhwa got excited and challenged Thiel on the spot.

------
loup-vaillant
> _If you indeed believe that we are headed for disaster, please work on
> averting it._

The way I see it, Thiel may have other priorities. Among other things, he is a
big (the biggest, if I recall correctly) donor for the SIAI (Singularity
Institute for Artificial Intelligence), which works on reducing existential
risks. That does pretty well for "averting disaster", though we're not talking
about education here.

------
VladRussian
with growing complexity of civilization and growing length of human life, it
is natural that to maximize the productive lifetime output of a human person,
the amount of education that person receives has been necessarily increasing
through the history.

Wrt. current state - if you can make people learn basic amount of the
knowledge necessary in today's human civilization [ie. BS = K12 + college] in
12 years - fine, drop the college years, otherwise the public education
standard must be increased to K16. Higher education right now means MS or PhD.
People with bare K12 are the ones left behind and deprived of a chance of
being a productive and successful member of the civilization .

~~~
byrneseyeview
Civilization has gotten more complex in some ways. But the modern world
shields us from a lot of other complexity: how many poisonous plants and
dangerous animals do you need to identify? How many social/religious rituals
do you need to perform completely perfectly lest you be ostracized from
society?

One of the limiting factors on early-stage civilizations is that it takes
pretty much a lifetime to transmit information from one generation to the
next; between books, specialization, urbanization, and price signals (which
are basically an API on human desires and the resources necessary to fulfill
them), we need far less general knowledge than we used to.

~~~
VladRussian
>we need far less general knowledge than we used to.

yep, and more "good paying manufacturing jobs" :)

Seriously, it looks like you just don't understand the r- and K-selection
(because it would be an unnecessary "general knowledge" until you're an
evolution biology professional and thus you don't know it) and thus you don't
understand where your sentiment is coming from.

~~~
byrneseyeview
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1055153>

r/K selection is a nice addition to the mental toolbox. (I learned about it
while in high school, because I cut class to hang out in the library.)

There is a difference between liking an outcome (people who have the
intellectual tools necessary to contribute to society) and being wedded to any
particular means (ever more students going to ever larger institutions to
spend ever more money learning ever, ever less).

~~~
VladRussian
>being wedded to any particular means (ever more students going to ever larger
institutions to spend ever more money

these current particular means of Brick & Mortar large institutions are the
legacy of the pre-Internet age just like any other B&M institution, and they
will still have their niche going forward. Online education is going to be the
dominant form in the elevating of the basic level of education to the next
level beyond current K12. DB course from Stanford, Control Systems from
Berkley, Quantum Physics from CalTech, Differential Topology from Princeton
(or any of these course from my University :) while living in some dorms in
Tibet with a bunch of students from other countries ...

> learning ever, ever less)

this is where global competitive pressure comes into play. Free global flow of
trade, capital and labor immediately emphasizes the role of the level and
quality of education.

------
mruser
All I read:

Peter, "put your money and energy behind your convictions" since "the world is
ripe for another revolution" through "tablet-type devices" that are
"ubiquitous".

Tl;dr, this whole thing is stack of non-sequiturs.

------
ahsanhilal
I think Higher Ed efficacy and Higher Ed financing are two separate issues.
The system is broken, that does not mean that the system should be abolished.
Granted there is a high level of student debt:

<http://projectonstudentdebt.org/>

But that does not mean that education in and of itself structured in curricula
and colleges is actually a bad thing. Even with subsidies, education is quite
a huge financial challenge for most people. And increasing privatisation of
education will only lead to more student debt, almost to the point where the
opportunity cost is too high to go to college. That is fine for the genius
1-2% of the USA but for the rest of the US the structure does not really
create knowledge based human capital so needed to be competitive in the
current global landscape

The financing of education brings about a core philosophical issue, which is,
is education a public or private good. In most European countries, it is
considered a public good, and as such the state's responsibility. As such
student debt issues are almost marginal in these countries. However, on the
other hand, education and research quality in these universities is really
low, as evidenced by rankings:

<http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp>

(I know rankings are debatable but this is the only worldwide global ranking
system so lets just use it as a proxy for approximating how good a university
is). I also know that due to huge amounts of student loans subsidized through
private lenders, the whole education financial system came to an absolute halt
in 2008, whereby lenders could not lend to eligible students to go to college.
This is due to the fact that education loans are also packaged into securities
and sold to investors. They are also some of the highest performing loans. The
US government mainly guarantees these loans, but in 2008 had to actually
inject money to get loan market flowing again.

So the question is, is the university just a place to teach, or somewhere we
advance humanity through sometimes isoteric research that may become relevant
20 years from now. The US system has betted on the latter of these two options
for the past 30 years or so. The University system in the US is more of a
business than a place of education. The increased privitisation of education
has thus lead us to this place. Does it make sense to privatise it more given
the current situation? In my opinion, probably not.

As for people calling for the Khan Academy Model, please look at what they are
doing recently: they have partnered up with the Los Altos School district to
integrate their platform in classes. That increases the use of tech in
education, but it does not necessarily entirely change the way education is
imbibed to children. Same with Knewton, which works with universities.

------
shareme
He refuses to highlight the Highway robbery of both tax payers and students by
the Banking Elite.

Guess what folks the K12 budgets have not alarmingly increased over the past
12 years, just colleges. We have a system where elite bankers get to rob tax
payers and students with Loans that defy the uniform commercial code with on
term limits and other somewhat illegal terms.

Than we allow that banking elite class to stack the trustees that are elected
at state colleges so that there will always be a raise in budgets and rates
every year.

Here is the difference...30 years ago a student could pay for college tuition
from a job right out of high school.

Are we really gaining something when we allow colleges to enact unfunded
liabilities such as retirement to those who only put in 10 years and a sports
program that basically is a farm team for professional sports without
professional sports paying for the that farm team?

~~~
learc83
My younger brother has to pay an extra $400 in order to finance his school's
new football team. Why? The answer that the college would give is that
eventually the football team will generate revenue, in ticket sales, increased
attendane, and increased alumni giving. Yet, in 10 years I can guarantee that
the $400 charge will still be appearing on students receipts (probably
higher).

