$100,000 to Not Go to University

University is expensive and with the coalition government's new plans (in the UK), it's going to get much, much more costly. But, what are the alternatives? You need a degree to be successful, right? Wrong. Here is a list of billionaires who never attended university, or dropped out before finishing their degree:

Bill Gates - Co-founder and ex-chairman of Microsoft. Net worth: $54billion.

Michael Dell - Founder of Dell inc. Net worth: $14billion.

Mark Zuckerberg - CEO of Facebook. Net worth: $6.9billion.

Steve Jobs - CEO of Apple. Net worth: $6.1billion.

Sir Richard Branson - Founder of the 'Virgin Group'. Net worth: $5billion.

Ralph Lauren - Founder of Polo Ralph Lauren. Net worth: $4.6billion.

A longer list can be seen here. 

Great. Now, Tell Me About the $100k.

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, is supporting young entrepreneurs with his new Thiel Fellowship.

What Is The Thiel Fellowship?

The Thiel Fellowship is a program where 20 people, under the age of 20, are given $100,000 to dedicate their time to creating and implementing a brilliant idea. Thiel talks about how,

some of the world's most transformational technologies were created by people who stopped out of school because they had ideas that couldn't wait until graduation.

His whole idea is that people should not let education get in the way of a fantastic idea. It's a really great premise, and I totally agree; for many great solutions, spending 3+ years and thousands of dollars/pounds at university is just a complete waste of time. The problem, up until now, is giving potential students a reason to risk their future (if their plan goes belly-up) by missing out on higher education. Although this program is only available to 20 lucky entrepreneurs, it should bring hope to thousands more.

I'd like to end this post with a quote from the aforementioned Bill Gates:

I failed in some subjects at school, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft.

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