I think you're both right. Thiel is right that most folks don't need to go to college and it's horribly over-priced, etc. You're right that we have a lot of investors with a large personal self-ish financial interest in having as many developers and engineers, especially younger/cheaper ones, available to execute on their startup ideas and/or to "invest" (buy lottery tickets on) in them. So you're both right. No contradiction.

But look at it from a student's point of view. In case he gets a useless education and a huge loan, the student's life is ruined. If he gets some money from a "me too angel" and works on a non idea and fails... he still gains valuable experience and knows more about the real world and programming and a wealthy guy becomes a little less wealthy. From a student's point of view this is probably the best time to learn and let some one else foot the bill ;-)