What is the Purpose of Higher Education?

For John, BLUF:  You don't need a college education to succeed, but you should ask yourself what you are looking for in the Ivy Halls.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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There have been some questions about the purpose and use of higher education.  It is one of the topics touched on by Mr Peter Thiel in a long interview by Mr Ezra Klein.

However, here comes Mr Peter Thiel, being interviewed by Mr Ezra Klein, for Vox.  Frankly, I believe Mr Klein's questions are too long, but we do get interesting answers.  Here is the Intro:

Peter Thiel is best known as the billionaire technology investor who founded the e-payment giant PayPal and the massive data analysis firm (and security contractor) Palantir.  Oh, and he also tried to build a libertarian utopia on a giant platform in the open sea.  And he pays smart kids to skip college. And he was one of the first investors in Facebook.  And he's the inspiration for the Aspergy venture capitalist on HBO's Silicon Valley.

A number of topics are discussed, but this is the one on Education, framed as "The problem with the Ivy League".

Ezra Klein:  You're very critical about the way that we incentivize kids to win at competition in general rather than to be amazing and obsessive in particular pursuits.  You’ve offered some really smart kids thousands of dollars to skip college altogether.  Do you think your critique is about all, or most, kids?  Or is it just about a small slice of Ivy League-aimed, hyper-overachievers?

Peter Thiel:  I'm very focused on the question of what happens at the elite universities because they dominate the whole narrative.  A lot of lesser colleges are trying to emulate the top ones in one way or another.  And I do think there's something very odd about our talented people all going to the same short list of colleges and then, from there, going into the same narrow list of careers.

Ezra Klein:  So the idea is that the Ivy Leagues are the point of leverage on the system because they’re the point of maximum aspiration not just for students, but for other colleges?

Peter Thiel:  My view is if you want to actually somehow get people to rethink the system, you have to rethink the very top schools.  There's all these ways we talk about education that are very misleading.  I think it’s a tremendous abstraction even to use the word "education."  What sort of a good is education?  Is it a consumption decision, or college as a four-year party?  Is it an investment decision, where you will develop skills to get a better-paying job?  Is it an insurance policy, so that you don't fall through the big cracks in our society; or is it, say, a zero-sum tournament in which the intensity of the competition is what somehow validates the tournament?

I think one of the things that's deeply dishonest about it is that it mostly presents itself as an insurance policy, because people in our society are somewhat pessimistic and somewhat worried about the future.  They desperately want insurance. But the reality is that it is this tournament.

Food for thought.

Hat tip to Memeorandum.

Regards  —  Cliff