<story><title>Will Dropouts Save America?</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-america.html?smid=fb-share&amp;pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>quanticle</author><text>And how, exactly, are you going to get &lt;i&gt;into&lt;/i&gt; college without a high-school diploma?</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Better idea: Drop out of high school to go to college. Then start your business at 19 after graduating.</text></item><item><author>jjmaxwell4</author><text>Can&apos;t things change quite a bit between these years? When your in school, you&apos;re broke. Its not weird to eat ramen and work all the time.&lt;p&gt;But by the time your 22, maybe you got an internship at a cool company, and they&apos;re offering you 80k a year. Your getting used to a decent standard of living. Maybe you get recruited by Wall Street and the dangle 140k under your nose. You take the job, and get locked in with the &quot;golden handcuffs&quot;. Now your comfortable, and you meet a cute girl, who wants a guy with a steady job, so you never start the company.&lt;p&gt;Maybe this guy was never really meant to be an entrepreneur; maybe he wanted that comfortable life all along. But when he was 19 he was ready to go.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;There&apos;s no rush. Someone who can start a successful startup at 19 can do it as well or better at 22.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think there is a better chance that he won&apos;t start the startup at 22, cause he got a high paying job, and doesn&apos;t want to downgrade from his standard of living.</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>&quot;I’d put my money on the kids who are dropping out of college to start new businesses.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Even though this might sound to some like a description of what YC does, in fact we&apos;re reluctant to fund people who are still in school.  There&apos;s no rush.  Someone who can start a successful startup at 19 can do it as well or better at 22.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kragen</author><text>I applied for early admission to UNM.  I applied fairly late (I don&apos;t remember if there was an explicit deadline, but if so I was before it) and hadn&apos;t heard back by the first day of my senior year of high school.  I called the admissions office at lunch from the high school, and they said, &quot;Sorry to have not gotten back to you in time.  You&apos;ve got good letters of recommendation and you already have six credit hours at UNM with a 4.0 GPA.  We&apos;re going to admit you.&quot;&lt;p&gt;I told people at the high school goodbye, left before the end of the day, and &lt;i&gt;never went back to that fucking place&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;That&apos;s how I did it.  Your mileage may vary.</text></comment>
<story><title>Will Dropouts Save America?</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/will-dropouts-save-america.html?smid=fb-share&amp;pagewanted=all</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>quanticle</author><text>And how, exactly, are you going to get &lt;i&gt;into&lt;/i&gt; college without a high-school diploma?</text></item><item><author>Cushman</author><text>Better idea: Drop out of high school to go to college. Then start your business at 19 after graduating.</text></item><item><author>jjmaxwell4</author><text>Can&apos;t things change quite a bit between these years? When your in school, you&apos;re broke. Its not weird to eat ramen and work all the time.&lt;p&gt;But by the time your 22, maybe you got an internship at a cool company, and they&apos;re offering you 80k a year. Your getting used to a decent standard of living. Maybe you get recruited by Wall Street and the dangle 140k under your nose. You take the job, and get locked in with the &quot;golden handcuffs&quot;. Now your comfortable, and you meet a cute girl, who wants a guy with a steady job, so you never start the company.&lt;p&gt;Maybe this guy was never really meant to be an entrepreneur; maybe he wanted that comfortable life all along. But when he was 19 he was ready to go.&lt;p&gt;&amp;#62; &lt;i&gt;There&apos;s no rush. Someone who can start a successful startup at 19 can do it as well or better at 22.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I think there is a better chance that he won&apos;t start the startup at 22, cause he got a high paying job, and doesn&apos;t want to downgrade from his standard of living.</text></item><item><author>pg</author><text>&quot;I’d put my money on the kids who are dropping out of college to start new businesses.&quot;&lt;p&gt;Even though this might sound to some like a description of what YC does, in fact we&apos;re reluctant to fund people who are still in school.  There&apos;s no rush.  Someone who can start a successful startup at 19 can do it as well or better at 22.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spamizbad</author><text>You could probably drop out, get a GED, go to community college for 2 years, and then transfer to the school that&apos;ll give you a 4 year degree.&lt;p&gt;With that said, I think some states have different rules in terms of  what age you&apos;re allowed to drop out at.  For example, Illinois requires students to be 17 years of age (and receive parental consent, of course) to drop out.  At that point you&apos;re better off just finishing high school. even if you want to rapidly track into college.</text></comment>