I am not a big proponent of students dropping out of college but what if someone offered you $100,000 to walk away from college? Would you do it? Sound too good to be true? What’s the catch?  I wondered all these questions and then some when I heard about this recent grant program.

Peter Thiel, Founder of Paypal, is looking for 20 of the best and brightest student entrepreneurs under the age of 20. His hope is to award a $100,000 grant to each of these students in support of their scientific and technological ideas. The only catch.. you have to drop out of school.

“Our world needs more breakthrough technologies,” said Thiel. “From Facebook to SpaceX to Halcyon Molecular, 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. This fellowship will encourage the most brilliant and promising young people not to wait on their ideas, either. The Thiel Fellows will change the world and call it a senior thesis.”

So, if you are having a hard time making it through your college experience from a financial perspective but really think that you could turn the world upside down with your ideas – this may be the program for you!

The application period for this program is October 29th to December 15th and it is open to people under the age of 20 as long as they are “budding entrepreneurs”.  You also need to be willing to move to California to receive the full impact of the mentoring that will be provided throughout the fellowship. If you would like to submit an application for this revolutionary grant program, you can do so by visiting this link!