A salary of $ 5,400 a month for abandoning the university and getting to work

In recent years, the idea that obtaining a university degree was synonymous with Professional success. However, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Jack Doresey or Amancio Ortega did not complete their university studies and that has not prevented them from becoming some of the world’s greatest fortunes.

Peter Thielco -founder of PayPal and Palantir has promoted a controversial “Antibeca” for students in their company’s practices. Instead of encouraging Approve everything and be the best of the promotion as they do the usual scholarships, their objective is for students to stop studying and devote themselves full time to work in their company.

$ 5,400 for not studying. Peter Thiel’s data analysis company has presented an initiative for its fellows that defies conventional standards. Instead of encouraging the academic training of their beneficiaries, Palantir meritocracy scholarshipoffers them a salary 5,400 dollars a month for a period of four -month practices for those students who have finished high school and have not enrolled in the university.

This initiative starts from the position maintained by the company’s directive, with Peter Thiel to the front, on the value provided by university education. “Everything you learned at school and at the University about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,” said Alex Karp, co -founder and executive director of Palantir In an interview For CNBC.

Protest and capture talent in a movement. Beyond being a strategy to capture technological talent before it is put in the radar of the Universities recruitersPeter Thiel scholarship is only one more step in the crusade than the founding millionaire maintains against the US education system.

The Palantir meritocracy scholarship is nothing more than the extension of the Thiel scholarship that, as collected Techcrunchthe millionaire has been granting young talents that they want to undertake, under the condition of abandoning their university training. In return, they get $ 100,000 financing to start your company.

“The opaque standards of admission in many American universities have displaced meritocracy and excellence. As a result, qualified students are denied an education based on subjective and superficial criteria. Without meritocracy, campus have become culture broth for extremism and chaos,” says the call. In addition, he points out that at the end of the scholarship, candidates will have access to full -time hiring interviews to work in Palantir. “Forget about debts. Forget about indoctrination. Get the title of Palantir “, reads in the Pliego of conditions of the scholarship.

Risks to the future professional. Although abandoning the university may seem attractive thanks to the competitive salary and the work experience offered by Palantir, this decision is not exempt from risks, As he remembered Entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa in Forbes.

According to data From the US Labor Statistics Office of 2024, who have a university degree they earn up to 86% more a year than those who only have secondary studies. In addition to the financial impact, leave the university It implies losing opportunities valuable to establish professional and social networks. Connections with colleagues and teachers are usually fundamental to access future jobs or references. To cite an example, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer They were university colleagues. Although Gates left Harvard months later, his stay served to generate those contacts.

University and work reality. Peter Thiel is not the only one who doubts the usefulness of the educational programs of the universities. According toReport data Knowledge and Development Foundation of 2024, 35.8% of university graduates occupy low qualification work, due to disconnection between Competencies acquired at the University and the labor market demands.

For its part, areas with high professional demand by companies, such as software engineering and IA engineersthey register A high number of vacancies Because universities are not offering adequate training to cover those vacancies, and it is the companies themselves who assume the internal training of their employees.

Less titles, more skills. The study ‘DISMISSED by Degrees’ Prepared by Accenture, Grads of Life and Harvard Business School, he points out that many companies require university degrees for positions where the necessary skills could be acquired through work experience or technical training. This “practical” approach to skills is closer to Model adopted by the FPthan to the traditional university. Hence his success.

To deal with this hiring bias, companies such as IBM or Amazon have adopted approaches to Skills -based hiringthat Specific skills value more than traditional university titles. An approach to which It is very supportive Mark Zuckerberg.

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Image | Flickr (Gage Skidmore, Cory Doctorow)