“Tech companies launching their own programs to train grads because they ‘can’t rely’ on Ivy Leagues”
As the university system increasingly becomes a wildly expensive bastion of anti-Western sentiment, key figures in Silicon Valley are betting on alternatives to higher education. They argue that even the Ivy League is no longer producing the best candidates — nor are they even accepting some of the most qualified students.
“It used to be the case that you could rely on somebody who went to an Ivy or Ivy-equivalent to be top notch,” said Jordan Hirsch, who runs Palantir’s semester-long intensive Meritocracy Fellowship, which accepts high school graduates.“But that’s not the case anymore… we suspected that there was a lot of talent being missed.”
Palantir has become a pioneer of the effort to offer alternatives to the conventional four-year undergraduate degree — and now it’s planning to double the size of its third semester-long intensive.
The company’s four-month fellowship begins with a five-week crash course in Western civilization — studying philosophers like Aristotle and heroes like Churchill — with classes taught by visiting professors, journalists, and researchers alongside executives such as CEO Alex Karp and CTO Shyam Sankar.
In addition to spending the five weeks studying the classics and history, students also build software and later embed with a Palantir team for their assignments.
“What we’re trying to build is what we think the college environment should be — and do it in five weeks,” Hirsch said. “The mission is to support, sustain, and resuscitate the most important institutions, both commercial and government, in the West, in the United States in particular.”
He wants students to leave with an appreciation for “individual dignity, individual liberty, human agency, and… a real love for America, for all of its imperfections.”
Hirsch estimated that nearly 700 people applied last year for 26 slots. Applications for the next class open Oct. 15, and Palantir hopes to take as many as 50 fellows.
———
More:
It’s not school that’s dead. It’s the institutions that hijacked it. School, the real one—that of the Athenian Academy, the Renaissance workshops, the master and apprentice—is going to be reborn. More demanding. More just. Without debt, without dogma, without a degree as a lifelong annuity.
A school that will no longer produce graduates, but polymaths. Free minds, capable of coding, thinking, building, and doubting. They’re the ones who will create the value of the next fifty years.
———
I built an antidote to the America-as-villain history and English lessons taught in too many of our public schools.
I wish the schools would do this. I spent 24 years trying from the inside, but the system is too sclerotic. The older teachers are too comfortable to push back enough, the younger teachers too poorly educated. The curriculum companies are captured. The School Boards are tied down by state regulations.
———
“Did you know my school was bad like this when you decided to put me here?” she asked.
Madison’s district, despite an elite university pipeline, hypereducated leadership, and a shiny, new strategic plan, suffers the same frailties as Milwaukee’s: basement performance, backbreaking spending. But while Milwaukee is pulling out of its tailspin due to courageouschoices from the top, Madison is ponderously ambling to nowhere. Just ask the locals. “You need the marketing, and you need the product,” as a parent told a reporter. “I’m missing the product.”
2025-2026 Madison 4k-3rd grade Early Literacy Screener report: The bar moves faster than the kids.
Joe Gothard, Becky Kundert and Sonia Spencer Remarks on Madison’s K-12 Literacy Crisis.
2026-2027 Madison K-12 $pending continues to grow, fueled by a 9.7% (!) property tax increase. Total spending will be at least $706,000,000 for 25,003 students, or $28,236 per student.
May 2026 Madison School District Presentation: 7,095 adults for 25,003 students (3.52 students per adult!)
2024-2025 Early Literacy Screener Map.
Map: Foundations of Reading Results: 2015–2024
Where have all the students gone?
3,887 Madison 4 year old to third grade students scored lower than 75% of the students in the national comparison group.
Madison taxpayers have long supported far above average k-12 tax & $pending. This despite our long term, disastrous reading results. May, 2026: 7,095 Staff for 25,003 students; $pending > $26k per student!
Madison Schools: More $, No Accountability
The taxpayer funded Madison School District long used Reading Recovery…
The data clearly indicate that being able to read is not a requirement for graduation at (Madison) East, especially if you are black or Hispanic.
My Question to Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers on Teacher Mulligans and our Disastrous Reading Results
2017: West High Reading Interventionist Teacher’s Remarks to the School Board on Madison’s Disastrous Reading Results
Madison’s taxpayer supported K-12 school district, despite spending far more than most, has long tolerated disastrous reading results.
“An emphasis on adult employment”
Wisconsin Public Policy Forum Madison School District Report[PDF]
WEAC: $1.57 million for Four Wisconsin Senators
Friday Afternoon Veto: Governor Evers Rejects AB446/SB454; an effort to address our long term, disastrous reading results
Booked, but can’t read (Madison): functional literacy, National citizenship and the new face of Dred Scott in the age of mass incarceration.
When A Stands for Average: Students at the UW-Madison School of Education Receive Sky-High Grades. How Smart is That?
China’s PhD Glut Drives Top Graduates to High School Teaching Jobs
