I had a thesis over 10 years ago that youth entrepreneurial education could solve the relevance gap of college degrees. This is especially relevant in the tech world where kids can become proficient even before high school. The MAG-7 tech world is built for gritty engineers. For a long time, it favored those with the right college degrees, special talents, and wealthy connections. Everything has changed recently thanks to tech innovation and youth taking the initiative to learn. Tech-savvy parenting accelerates all kinds of possibilities. America’s H-1B foreign worker visa program supplies much of the tech talent.

Brilliant high schooler Zach Yadegari got accepted at UT-Austin, Miami, and Georgia Tech. Yet, perfect academic credentials and running a profitable AI app company wasn’t enough for my alma mater (WashU) and the elite colleges of America.

In my prior blog post, I wrote about a similar youth entrepreneur Ryan Orbuch who was giving a TED talk while still in high school. That same kid bypassed college altogether to become a developer at tech unicorn Stripe. Today, Ryan works as a partner at a venture capital firm run by Chris Sacca.

Zach like Ryan will probably not need to go to college unless he wants to change careers. Maybe this was a collective statement by academia to grandstand against an ambitious youth — who’s clearly showing how their 4-year undergrad experience has become outdated when it comes to professional development. Over 9 million student loan borrowers are struggling to repay loans —- many with elite college degrees that didn’t land them good jobs. Is there an institutional fear in academia and secondary schools of brilliant youth like Zach and Ryan who continue to override their relevance and avoid their excessive overhead? It seems like a shrewd, tech-savvy 18-year-old can already report to work at Microsoft without the 100-200K college loan.

In some ways, colleges offer the youth of tomorrow a place to slow down, reflect, and become more rounded human beings. Some of the highest profile tech folks today don’t seem to demonstrate empathy, philanthropy, or a good understanding of history. The grownups seem to be missing in the halls of power. It still makes no sense that a brilliant kid like Zach got rejected with his successful startup helping people lose weight. The good news for Zach is he is on a trajectory to accomplish great things if stays on a tech career path. He learned to become a self-reliant entrepreneur at a young age.

As I reflect on my original thesis, entrepreneurial education needs to become mandatory across all schools and colleges. American tax dollars are wasted on things that don’t enable professional relevance. The proficiency of American youth in math continues to fall short against most of the overseas competition. This is a crisis that warrants an overhaul of the current system. Not going to college is not the problem here. The lack of preparedness for becoming a skilled, adaptable worker is the fault of the current educational system — supported by the most advanced technologies made available by American companies. Unemployment after earning a college degree is also an unacceptable outcome.

I know the U.S. Department of Education faces a bleak future. Let’s rename it as the Department of Entrepreneurship and make youth education an experience aligned towards real-world job skills. Everything else I learned in college was gravy—- from sociology to Japanese history. Zach and Ryan offer blueprints for youth seeing beyond fancy college degrees.