For every one time I leverage my college network I have 10 where I leverage my network I built after college.
The fellowship's community is one of the few places I've found people like me, my age, who are so obviously better than me that I feel out of place being in the same room.
As with all communities, the quality of people vary (regardless of how you define quality), but the fellowship has the highest concentration of smart young people that I've ever experienced.
I never went to university and don't have that as a point of reference, but I have a hard time believing I'd find a similarly concentrated group anywhere else.
This article and the Thiel Fellowship are implicit admissions that it's not what you know, but who. And that entrepreneurs don't need to know things, only people.
Whichmay go towards explaining why they tend not to address fundamental problems.
I don't mean that as a challenge. I really do mean to pick it apart. You can argue that this one is more meritocratic. It's also blatantly clear that it had an admissions committee of one.
Edit: And as someone else pointed out, you don't get the hard skills training that you get in university.