
Replacing My Kid’s College Fund with a “Start Something” Fund - RobbieStats
https://unsupervisedmethods.com/replacing-my-kids-college-fund-with-a-start-something-fund-3b51c8c96501#4t3qgaf
======
goldfeld
Sounds like a horrible idea full of assumptions and pressure, as opposed to
offering an exploratory period of life that is college (socially and
intellectually), a nice option for those who can afford it.

Not everyone has to be coaxed into entrepreneurship, it's an evil of our
consumerist age. Your kid would probably rather participate in society at
large than in your suicidal runway idea of a romanticized youth of modern
times. "Starting something" with no experience at all is almost guaranteed to
mean burned cash, family resentment and a bunch of hard lessons. Why not send
them to military school and spare cash and suffering?

~~~
notadoc
> offering an exploratory period of life that is college (socially and
> intellectually)

That is exactly what college is, and is supposed to be.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that college is a jobs training
program, or a career readiness program - it's not. It was never intended to
be. College is supposed to give someone a broader perspective, a more complex
worldview, exposure to a vast array of topics and ideas, and to develop habits
that are generally beneficial to any life or intellectual pursuit. That's it.

Entrepreneurship is great, and it will teach you many different things and
some hard lessons as well, but it's not going to even remotely offer the same
sort of experience or exposure. It's not college, you're not reading classical
literature as part of a startup grind.

Also, society needs to accept that for some people, neither college, nor
"starting something", is well suited or an appropriate expectation. Some
people just aren't cut out for either, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Some people would be better off learning a trade, or going through an
apprenticeship, or being self taught, or any number of other means of learning
and developing skills.

~~~
pirocks
Sorry for being edgy, but please tell me where I can get jobs training for
being a doctor, lawyer, etc. that isn't college. Regardless of what you think
college is, college currently is primarily jobs training.

~~~
stale2002
That is a small percentage of the population.

Most people who went to college are not now working in an industry where a
degree is literally required by law.

~~~
sanderjd
It is also not the most efficient way to achieve the required training for
those jobs. We could have future doctors and lawyers go straight to trade
schools focused solely on those professions, and likely shave a couple years
off their total education. But most people in our society agree that we like
our doctors and lawyers to have the breadth that an undergraduate degree is
intended to provide.

~~~
hanklazard
I don't really care if my thoracic surgeon has a strong grasp of
microeconomics or 19th Century British Lit. I only care that s/he has good
medical training and experience.

Note: I'm a doctor.

~~~
eropple
You don't care if your surgeon has been exposed to the idea of opportunity
costs and given a framework for thinking about them structurally?

That's pretty weird, Doc.

~~~
tptacek
I sure don't. First-line health care is way too expensive, and everyone
suffers from it, both patients and prospective caregivers. I don't really
believe exposure to gen-ed requirements makes my internal medicine doctor any
more effective at diagnosing and treating illness.

~~~
eropple
First-line health care is too expensive for reasons entirely separate from
"the doctor had the basics of a humanities education," though. TBH, most of
the doctors I know (and I used to work in healthcare) are hyper-specialized
cargo-cultists in a lot of ways and that worries me a lot; a basic framework
of how-to-think-about-things seems _kind of important_ to me (and that's what
the humanities are).

~~~
tptacek
I think I'm going to push back on this. First-line health care is expensive in
large part because the educational process of taking an 18 year old and
turning them into a caregiver who can prescribe drugs and perform basic
procedures is nosebleed expensive. (I'm staring down the barrel of it right
now with my first kid going off to school this fall).

I'm aware that a lot of that expense is in stuff like organic chemistry, which
we probably don't want to cut back on. But the gen-ed stuff matters too,
especially because it matters where you go for undergrad and how well you do
in those gen-ed classes in order to get into a selective med school, which is
how you get a selective residency.

I don't think those gen-ed requirements are really paying for themselves in
how health care is delivered.

~~~
eropple
Is it nosebleed expensive because of this class or that class, or because
demand is high and supply of positions in medical schools is strictly
controlled to provide scarcity to the consumer market on the other end?

I kinda feel like you're pulling an XY problem here.

(Grats on your oldest, though. Condolences on the bill.)

------
jaclaz
I don't know.

Basically this means more or less that on the day your son (or daughter)
becomes 18 you put on the table 2,000x100 US$ bills in a few neat stacks and
ask him/her whether he/she likes it better to:

1) Study (hard) for the next 5 years (possibly in a remote city), living with
one or more co-students in a tiny apartment and receive - say - some 500-600
bucks each month for petty expenses

OR:

2) get - here and now - all the 200,000 US$ as long as they are used ONLY in
expenses related to the building of a new company, but of course with no
particular form of control on expenses, as I trust you and you are big enough
to make your own decisions.

With rigorously invented numbers (i.e. pure speculation or guessing), I would
expect that out of 100 choosing option #1 70 would get after 5 or 6 years
studying and a degree (without student debt to hunt them for the rest of their
life) a decent, qualified job (and income), 20 a somewhat underpaid job, 5 no
stable job/income and 5 (for one reason or the other) something else.

Of those that chose option #2, I would expect that 5 manage to build a
"successful" company, 15 a more or less good company (anyway providing enough
income to have bills paid and raise a family) and 80 either building a company
soon going to Chapter 11/bankrupcy or building no company at all.

The good question would be how many of 18 years old would choose option #1
over #2?

~~~
eeZah7Ux
> Study (hard) for the next 5 years

I don't think colleges in US can be as hard as universities in some european
counties. Especially where universities are free.

I would be curious to hear if there are some exceptions.

~~~
vonkale
In my country (Finland), government actually pays for studying and
universities are free. My experience studying abroad is that actually the
curriculum and studying is mostly the same all over the world. I think there
might some outliers in the TOP10 universities in the world, but the major
differences are in the student population, connections and reputation. I think
only maybe 10-20% study really hard anyways. At that point in life most people
would have more than 100 usable hours easily, but most of the students do
minimal work necessary and do something else.

------
osrec
I love this idea, but you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child
before giving them the money. Like a lot of people here, I have a decent
degree from a good university; I can confirm that it hasn't given me much more
than a foot in the door for my next interview. Most of the academic knowledge
I gained, I could have learnt by myself (in fact that's what I did, even at
university), and a lot of it is now redundant. In some ways, I feel a
university education was a fairly bad use of my time and money. After uni, I
got a "good" job, was hugely unsatisfied, saved some money and then started my
own company. I cannot stress enough how difficult it can be to find direction
when doing your own thing. As a kid you're used to living within a fairly
bounded, directed framework. When you have to define your own direction, it
can unsettle you. Make sure your kids are comfortable with finding their own
way - it's not just about making them independent, but also about developing
an intelligent work ethic (which I believe is the key characteristic of a good
entrepreneur), and being comfortable in the midst of uncertainty.

~~~
20years
"you need to nurture the entrepreneur in your child before giving them the
money."

This is key imo. Even if it means starting small little business type things
like selling candy at school. Teach them how to keep track of
profit/losses/expenses, how to recognize opportunities and how to test the
waters before jumping fully in. I do this with my 13 year old son. His most
successful business so far has brought him $4500 in revenue.

I don't call it entrepreneur training or even training at all. He doesn't even
really realize he is learning. It is something fun we do together and he has
tasted what it feels like to make his own money. It has allowed him to save
and buy his own things.

When he graduates from high school, I won't push him one way or another
(college vs entrepreneurship). I will leave that up to him but I hope at least
I will have given him a little taste of entrepreneurship so he can make his
own choice when the time comes. I will also heavily encourage him to work a
few jobs at other companies first. That in itself is a huge learning
experience.

------
tudorw
I went the build your business route, if I had my time again I'd get the
degree first, compared to the time, effort and risk of building a business
taking 5 years to get a degree seems like time well spent. Getting a degree
does not preclude you from starting a business, the reverse is not so
universally true as youth is on your side when funding education in most
countries. Few of my peers work in fields related to their degree, yet few
would have their current standing were it not for holding a degree.

~~~
34090doood9
There's a certain cultural or community hypocrisy in these discussions. Not at
the level of individuals necessarily, but it seems in reading through HN and
other sites, there's two opposite messages I see:

The first is "degree doesn't matter! You need to go out and build something,
and you don't need a degree to do it!"

The other is "we won't hire anyone except those with X STEM degree, possibly
even not anyone unless they have a master's degree or higher."

As someone considering a career change (with an advanced degree) it's
maddening. The message seems to be that if you don't have a core STEM degree,
or haven't started a self-sustaining mega-profitable business, you have no
ability to do anything.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, other than that societal perceptions
of skill and ability seem seriously pathological.

I don't think everyone needs an undergrad degree, but it sure doesn't hurt.
But by the same token, a degree isn't everything, and I think people need to
take this position seriously if they're going to take it.

------
manbearpigg
A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide
valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob.

I guess it's better than a gender studies degree, but believe it or not,
undergraduate education is not completely useless. I learned a hell of a lot.

~~~
20years
"A fully qualified engineer will be in a much better position to provide
valuable products and services than an 18 year old noob."

Not sure I totally agree with this. I have meet a ton of very smart fully
qualified engineers who have no business sense whatsoever.

That does not mean I am discounting the engineering degree. Not at all. At
least an engineering degree will generally give you a very nice return. What
makes a good engineer though is not often the same as what makes a good
entrepreneur.

~~~
lazaroclapp
Guess the point is: All else being equal, someone with a relevant degree will
have an easier time being a successful entrepreneur (and, not less important:
a reasonable backup plan) than someone fresh out of high school. Likely they
will have a better network too. And this is all assuming that entrepreneurship
is really the goal, which, lets face it, for most people is an unreasonable
trade-off of safety, personal time, health and comfort for nebulous "freedom"
and a very unlikely chance at striking gold.

~~~
20years
"All else being equal, someone with a relevant degree will have an easier time
being a successful entrepreneur"

I think that is where we may disagree.

Plenty of Entrepreneurs who made it big without a degree. Some of the top of
our time actually. [http://www.businessinsider.com/top-100-entrepreneurs-who-
mad...](http://www.businessinsider.com/top-100-entrepreneurs-who-made-
millions-without-a-college-degree-2011-1)

"for most people is an unreasonable trade-off of safety, personal time, health
and comfort for nebulous "freedom" and a very unlikely chance at striking
gold."

This I somewhat agree with but I oftentimes wonder if a lot of the "very
unlikely chance" part of it has to do with the inaccurate and unrealistic
image the start-up scene places along with the lack of good education on
starting a business. You can build a very comfortable life running your own
business without being a unicorn but seems as though most are shooting for
unicorn level. That I believe is where most of the failure comes from.

It really isn't all that difficult to build a $200k to $500k+ year small
business. Easier today than ever. But that's not sexy so people shoot for the
stars and miss more often than not.

------
Waterluvian
I have an "after highschool" fund. My parents called this a university fund.
But I'm communicating it as money to use to figure out what you want to do
with your life. My kids can use it to do whatever, so long as they can make a
rational case for how they intend on spending it. They'll also have to endure
lots of dad talks and dad advice to make use of this resource.

If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing the
"proper" use of this money.

~~~
overcast
"If I've done my job as a parent well, I won't have to worry about policing
the "proper" use of this money."

Except they still have to come up with a rational case, and endure lots of dad
talks, and dad advice before they can use it.

------
equivocates
Serious question: what do your kids know about running a company?

~~~
urethrafranklin
Serious answer: it's not about his kids, it's about him living vicariously
through them.

Oh, and building his twitter/thinkfluencer brand

------
nyxtom
This seems like a problem that could be solved by simply having business
development classes in high school. Much like all other skills, there is a
need to understand what it takes to run a business; manage budgets, invoice
and some rudimentary things. You don't have to create some crazy big start-up,
but these are skills that seem necessarily to understand before college. My
sister started a therapy business after she was in college and there are basic
skills that could of been taught in high school that would of better prepared
things. I didn't come across business plan proposals and contingency plans
until college but these are pretty straightforward things that could of been
taught far earlier IMHO.

Once you have that in place, if not in the education system, then through
parenting and after-school programs, then by the time college comes around the
"decision to start a business" won't come with the unnecessary risk of not
knowing how to run one.

------
jchin
I agree with the sentiment that college is not the only choice after high
school and may not be the best place to cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit.
However, I was surprised that after all the words used to describe how school
was lacking in this particular direction, taking the kids out of school was
not considered.

As some of the other commenters are suggesting, it may be too much of a jump
to offer such a choice to the child at 18 if the child was not preparing for
such an opportunity.

Homeschooling has its own critics and supporters and we don't need to get into
that here. But my question is this: If he's going to trust his child to make a
choice at 18, why not even earlier? How about 14? Or, in other words, why not
have their education focus on learning how to make their own decisions as
early as possible? And if school doesn't provide this for his children, should
they be there?

Granted, the author doesn't outline what he plans on doing between now and the
end of high school for his kids so maybe he is, in fact, preparing them for
this decision. I just think that the decision would be too drastic to spring
on an 18 year old who has had no preparation for it.

~~~
Consultant32452
You may be interested in a concept called "unschooling."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unschooling)

~~~
jchin
Yes. Also, the discussions on John Taylor Gatto's work

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2381608)

------
bitJericho
There's a third option. Self educate. Take 200,000. Buy all the tools and
equipment you need to do what you love. Do what you love for 5 to 10 years and
you'll have more than enough experience to be successful in your industry.

~~~
learc83
Almost no 18 year olds are self disciplined enough to do that without
structure. That's the point of college.

If you spend 5 years only playing your favorite parts of your favorite songs
on a guitar, you're not going to be a good musician.

Just like if you spend five years doing the fun parts of programming or
engineering or history, you won't be a good programmer, engineer, or
historian.

College (or an apprenticeship, or trade school) isn't required to learn the
hard/boring parts, but very few people are capable of doing so on their own at
that age.

~~~
jchin
I would argue that "few people are capable of so on their own at that age"
because they were never given the opportunity to learn and practice self-
discipline at an earlier age. After all, the typical American schooling
experience allows very little room for deviation from the same thing everyone
else is doing.

If you started to self-direct at 13 (or earlier), you'd probably be pretty
self-disciplined at 18.

------
Broken_Hippo
I always knew kids that wanted to start their own business - at least in high
school and college. I grew up poor-to-middle class, nothing special, living in
Indiana. I'm about 39 now. Some folks just don't consider it so young, just
like changing professions in one's late 20's. It usually goes along with the
dream of not having to answer to a boss and/or working hours one wants to
work, but not always.

But I _do_ think more folks would try if they could take the college money and
invest it in things like starting a business, no matter what the business is,
and wish more folks had this option.

~~~
bsbechtel
It would help a lot in making this a viable option if more companies gave
credit/valued the experience a young person gains by trying to start their own
company. Outside of the Bay Area, this is a rare occurance.

~~~
usrusr
How valuable would that experience really be? "Hired some friends and had a
good time playing pretend-company until we ran out of daddy-money" is a likely
outcome and that sounds way to much like the kind of college years that is
spent completely ignoring all education opportunities before eventually
dropping out.

When the company turns out to be viable the person would not be looking for a
job. But when it falls despite all the free runway the experience is likely
much lesser than that of someone who failed by a tiny main bootstrapping or
convincing real investors.

------
soneca
The problem I see is that this option is about finantial success, not
education.

Why not a third option of a fund to pay for 4 years of living/travelling
expenses, courses/books/workshops on a chosen field of knowledge?

------
AznHisoka
Why not do both? You have so much time in college you can strt a side business
in those 4 years. Yes college is a lot of assignments but looking back, you
realize you could have still graduated doing 50% less work.

~~~
soneca
Well, in the article he does say that college is still an option after the
company if it fails

~~~
jaclaz
Yep, but it is not like there is infinite supply of (assumed earlier by me)
US$ 200,000 packets.

There is just one, and if your kid burned it, there is no more for the
college.

------
bspn
I find the title a little manufactured to be honest. He openly admits that if
his kids decide they want to go to college then the fund will cover 4 years
tuition, but if they decide to do something else then he'll fund that pursuit
too. I think his open-mindedness is great as college isn't for everyone, but
neither is entrepreneurialism. At the end of the day though, he's not really
replacing anything but rather he's doing exactly what he was previously just
with a different label.

------
sumanthvepa
If I were the parent I'd provide my kid with both options simultaneously:
Money for college and additionally money to take two years off after college
to do a startup.

------
Havoc
Matching the return on a quality education is going to be tough.

------
finnjohnsen2
whenever i see "my kid's college fund", im reminded how grateful i am to live
in a more social country than the US.

(Norway here btw)

~~~
anotherbrownguy
Now, download your government's budget, check the expenses in higher education
and compare the taxes that all working Norwegians have to pay to support the
education system (whether they go to school or not, have children or not) vs
taxes in the US.

------
yourmailman
Silly if you think they are mutually exclusive

