Dale Stephens

Dale J. Stephens thinks we’re paying too much for college – and learning too little.

His unique perspective on education, talent and innovation began early on – when his parents allowed him to drop out of formal schooling after 5th grade. Today he leads UnCollege, a social movement empowering students to create their own education.

In 2011, through a program created to identify twenty-four of the world’s most creative and motivated entrepreneurs under the age of twenty – and to help them bring their ideas to life – Dale was awarded a Thiel Fellowship, a no-strings-attached $100,000 grant to enable him to skip college and focus on his work, his research, and his self-education.

Dale and his approach to unschooling have been covered by the New York Times, New York Magazine, Fast Company and Forbes, and he has appeared on major news networks including CNN, ABC, NPR, CBS, Fox, and TechCrunch.

His first book, Hacking Your Education, a practical guide for learning the skills that school does not teach but are requisite for success in the real world, will be published by Penguin in early 2013.