Is College Worth It?

"We have a bubble in education like we had a bubble in housing in the last decade. Everybody believed that you had to have a house and they'd paid whatever it took, today everybody believes that we have to go to college and people will pay whatever it takes"


     These are the words of billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel as stated in an interview on 60 Minutes. Thiel is a co-founder of PayPal and one of the first investors of Facebook (which if you didn't know became quite successful). He now believes that higher education is at its worst due to college debt topping out at an astonishing 1 trillion dollars, and concludes that a degree in today's job market does not necessarily mark success. Thiel compares college administrators to "Con men" and disagrees with this belief that everyone must go to college no matter what the cost. He even goes on to state that in today's job market,"the average plumber makes just as much as the average doctor". So what does Peter Thiel decide to do with his great fortune? Pay a special group of students $100,000 to drop out.

     The Thiel Fellowship was established in 2011 by Peter Thiel, and its main purpose is to find the great entrepreneurs of the future, but theres just one catch: these students must drop out of college first. Thiel selects these fellows through a selection process where students must pitch him their entrepreneurial ideas in hopes of receiving $100,000 in start up funds. A truly interesting concept that has stirred up much controversy in the field of higher education. Vivek Wadhwa, a successful entrepreneur and professor at both Duke and Stanford university, believes that Thiel is a madman, and to be honest I completely agree. Just because someone has a very bright idea, A. doesn't mean they are ready to develop it without completing college, and B. doesn't make it right to spread this message to the rest of America. Vivek Wadhwa had it right when he stated that, "There might be one Mark Zuckerberg out of a million. But there aren't five Mark Zuckerbergs". Wadhwa is trying to stress that these drop out entrepreneurs that go on to be successful without completing college are so remarkably low that it would be ludicrous to buy into that possibility.


      One of the Fellows from the Thiel Fellowship, Alex Kiselev, stated that, "Of course we're destined to fail. That is what entrepreneurship is... [but] whenever all of our friends are graduating college, I think we'll far more likely to succeed then they will be". The interview transcript can be seen here.
What do you think of the Thiel Fellowship? Is it crazy or does it have merit?
Should it be okay for someone with a bright idea to drop out college?
What kind of message is this sending to Americans?

Title IX, Sports, and Magazines

      After discussing the cover of a Newsweek issue (pictured in the right hand corner) during class the other week I was both surprised and happy to see the latest Sports Illustrated cover (pictured top left). Not only are they both depicting gender issues in the United States, but the sports illustrated article also ties in with an important aspect of my Junior theme research, Title IX.

      First I would like to touch on the similarities between the two covers. The first thing that popped out in my mind was the vibrant use of the color red. This is seen in the Newsweek banner and the woman's lipstick on the Newsweek cover, and in the quotation marks as well as an underlined phrase on the Sports Illustrated cover. So what does this color symbolize? I saw the color red as a more feminine color, and also a color that easily catches ones attention. More interestingly, I saw the color as a sort of warning or hazard as seen on stop signs. This would make more sense in the Newsweek cover because it seems like the article is inferring that the working life of women is not as glamorous as many think. Lastly, red seems to connote a sort of lust and sex drive. This is explicitly seen in the woman's lipstick, and the underlining of the phrase "basis of sex".

     For those of you who don't know already (even though the definition is stated on the cover of Sports Illustrated) Title IX is a gender equality act that focuses on women's sports getting its fair share in collegiate athletics. What the article highlights is how far participation in women's athletics has grown in the last 40 years. Here are a few statistics and facts from the article:

• Women's Sports Foundation found that 40 years ago only 294,015 girls participated in high school sports. Last year that number ballooned to 3,173,549 girls, 10x greater than before.
• One study shows that if a girl does not participate in a sport by age 10, then theres only a 10% chance she will at the age of 25.
• Despite the progress of women's sports as a result of Title IX only 45% of collegiate athletics are women's while the make up 55% of the student body.

What similarities/differences do you see between the two magazine covers?

What are your views on the progress of women's athletics due to Title IX?

Stuck in Limbo

        As many seniors eagerly wait to hear back from their colleges of choice the hopeful outcome is either a fulfilling "Congratulations!" or a dreaded rejection. Instead, however, a number of students this year will have received a rather neutral message -- finding out they have been waitlisted. It isn't an outright no, but it surely isn't a yes either. So what does it mean? This response from colleges seems to be becoming more and more popular each year, and has left numerous high schools seniors in a sort of "limbo" stage in the admissions process.

     According to a Tribune article regarding the growth of college waitlists, the purpose of this separate group is due to the fact that, "It has become increasingly difficult for admissions officers to predict who actually will show up in the fall, so schools have countered with an insurance policy: a larger reserve pool to manage their enrollment". What is very interesting about this phenomenon is how rapidly it has grown in the last 10 years. The University of Chicago waitlist for example, according to the school newspaper The Chicago Maroon, grew from 500 names in 2003 to an astonishing 3,000 in 2012. Similarly, at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois the waitlist has grown by 1,300 names in the last six years. The biggest concern is not necessarily the rapid growth of these waitlists, but rather the false hope that some students get from them. 

     

      Bonnie Miller, Tribune reporter and author of the article, found that at Vanderbilt University only 9.4% of students on the waitlist were accepted this year, and that number has remained constant for several years now. Additionally, at Northwestern, according to school officials, only 21 out of 3,204 students were accepted from their waitlist in 2010, and none in 2011. These numbers paint a realistic picture of how many students actually get accepted from these "insurance" applicant pools.

      

        Even more interesting is the type of applicants that are placed on these waitlists. In an interview with James Conroy, head of the college counseling department at New Trier High School, I was told that "99% of the waitlist kids will be from New Trier type zip codes". This overwhelming number is due to the fact that when it comes time for the school to select students from the waitlist, they will not have a lot of money to give in financial aid. Therefore, they need students who will not require much financial assistance. An additional function of waitlists deals with schools wanting to satisfy big donors and legacies. They feel that by not outright denying an applicant, they are essentially easing the pain on the rejection yet to come.

What do you think of the waitlist system? Is it fair?