The Transport Guy: Dropping out of college is a terrible idea if you want to be a millionaire

Rob Ludacer, Shana Lebowitz and Steve Kovach November 14, 2017 at 06:33AM

Peter Thiel is offering a $10,000 fellowship to young entrepreneurs who drop out of college. While it's tempting, Scott Galloway reveals why it is awful advice. Following is a transcription of the video.

Scott Galloway. Professor of marketing, NYU Stern. Despite how outrageously expensive college is, it's still a pretty good plan B.

If a billionaire shows up and offers you $10,000 to drop out of college, punch that person in the face.

It's sort of, in my opinion, obscene that a billionaire with an undergraduate degree and a graduate degree is running around the nation trying to convince people to drop out of college.

It appears that it worked pretty well for him. If you look at new millionaires over the last 20 years, the vast majority of them have two things in common.

One is they work out every day. Physical fitness is very important in terms of your own levels of confidence and avoiding things like depression and having more energy every day.

But the number one thing all these folks have in common?

They went to college.

I just think it's obnoxious that a man who went to Stanford and then got a law degree and became a billionaire off of the credibility he was able to raise money off of is now telling kids to drop out of college.

I think it's f------ obnoxious. I mean if Steve Jobs or if Bill Gates was doing it, they have some credibility or some license to say it, but a guy with a graduate degree?

Drop out of college?

I tried to do this through Berkeley, and they didn't want to do it.

I said to Berkeley, I said " I'll give kids, pick 10 smart kids"– I just endowed a scholarship at Berkeley and said "let’s track 10 of them versus the 10 that Thiel… and we're going to win."

And they said, "well, we don’t want to embarrass the other kids."

But who would you bet on? 10 Berkeley grads, who are smart students with a college degree or...

There are always going to be the JAY-Zs of the world. There's going to be the Kobe Bryants. There’s going to be the Mark Zuckerbergs, the people that drop out of college.

You should assume you're not that person and go to college.

 

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Dropping out of college is a terrible idea if you want to be a millionaire from Business Insider: Steve Kovach