[00:00.00]Every year, thousands of young people around the country celebrate this important rite of passage: college graduation. 
[00:09.88]For generations it's been the traditional route to adulthood and success.
[00:14.38]So how did 21-year-old Sebastian Stant, a college dropout, end up here working side by side with the president of a multi-million dollar tech start-up?
[00:25.96]I feel like the sky's the limit right now, and when I was at college, the limit was 4.0. 
[00:31.37]And, like, here it's, like, if I work hard enough, like, I can  pretty much, like, accomplish, like, what I'm trying to do.
[00:36.03]He got this job through a non-profit organization called Enstitute¨Cit's a two year apprenticeship program for young would-be tech entrepreneurs that aims to be an alternative to higher education.
[00:52.04]Sebastian works with Daniel Klaus, the president of Airtime, a video communications company.
[00:57.55]Sebastian in particular has done a great job of sort of, like, grabbing onto a task, learning about it, asking for input, having -- you know, receiving input as we go, and learning along the way. 
[01:07.10]So it's actually been really productive for us.
[01:08.80]More and more young people like Sebastian Stant are looking for alternatives to a college education 
[01:14.57]partly because while college grads earn much more over the course of their lifetimes than those with only a high school degree, recent college graduates have struggled. 
[01:23.73]In 2011, estimates are that half were either jobless or working in a job that didn¡¯t require a four year degree.
[01:31.00]These kinds of numbers are what prompted Kane Sarhan and Shaila Ittycheria to act.
[01:37.35]We believe that you need to learn. That you don't just graduate high school ready to run a company or -- ready to work anywhere. 
[01:42.97]But we think you just need to be able to learn different ways.  
[01:45.09]And it doesn't all have to be in a classroom.
[01:47.01]Sarhan and Ittycheria are the brains behind Enstitute. 
[01:50.26]Both are big believers that learning on the job provides far more value than learning in the classroom. 
[01:56.37]For Ittycheria, that comes from personal experience.
[02:00.09]When I joined the startup community, saying I was a Harvard MBA was the biggest thing to shut doors in my face before anything else. 
[02:07.36]I actually stopped mentioning that I was an MBA because people have many interpretations of what that word means. 
[02:14.50]And they actually don't really know how good you are.  
[02:16.75]So instead, I started working at another startup for free where I proved my competency and my value.
[02:21.97]Soon after, when she got a job in charge of hiring new talent for a tech start up, her belief was reinforced that experience is more important than a fancy degree.
[02:32.04]Time and time again, regardless of what school these young adults came from the best Ivies to small unheard of community colleges, they couldn't critically think through anything.  
[02:43.93]And it didn't inspire any confidence in me. 
[02:45.68]If I give you a task can you actually get this done.
[02:47.93]So in November 2011, she and Sarhan, who also worked for the same tech start up, quit their jobs and created Enstitute.  
[02:56.29]They raised $90,000 by liquidating their personal savings. ¡­and another $300,000 from private investors, including Microsoft. 
[03:05.60]When they solicited applications¡­ nearly 500 young people applied and 11 were chosen. 
[03:11.96]You know, we get hundreds and hundreds of applications saying, "You know, college isn't working for me. I can't afford it.  
[03:16.48]It's not the right program for me.  
[03:17.64]This is what I¡¯ve been looking for." 
[03:19.01]Take Sebastian Stant. He left Virginia Tech after a year and a half.
[03:24.78]In college there are classes you take that won't necessarily be part of your career but make you a whole person.  
[03:29.99]I mean, do-- you miss those kinds of classes?
[03:32.19]No. I remember my freshman year sitting in my-- astronomy class. 
[03:37.71]And it was a 90-minute course and I remember just sitting in the class thinking that some other aspiring, young tech entrepreneur was using that 90 minutes to, like, further his career.
[03:46.57]Sebastian and the others in the Enstitute program still spend 6-8 hours a week on academic pursuits¡­ everything from art history to engineering. 
[03:55.54]But they spend at least 40 hours a week working for tech companies that provide two year apprenticeships through Enstitute. 
[04:01.96]The companies pay Enstitute a small fee to access applications and a recruiting fee if they end up hiring the fellow full time.  
[04:09.42]Companies include, bit.ly, thrillst and flavorpill.
[04:12.88]For the last year, each fellow lived for free in this Manhattan apartment, sharing cooking and cleaning duties, and living on their earnings of $800-$1,000 a month.
[04:25.88]So an outsider looking at your program might say, it's two years very little pay." no guarantee that-- that any of these young people will get jobs in those industries. I mean, it's a big risk.
[04:37.38]I think when you come and sit down with our students and you ask them if they feel like they're not going to get a job, they would 100 percent disagree with you. Right?  
[04:45.44]They see firsthand the networks they're being exposed to, the people they get to work with, the-- on the job training and education that they're getting. 
[04:52.91]Once or twice a week they invite tech entrepreneurs to network with the fellows.  
[04:59.70]The technology industry as a whole has been very used to this idea of students not going to college and getting certified.  
[05:06.87]I'm not quite sure that the rest of the economy's quite ready for that. 
[05:10.28]Jeff Selingo is an editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly news service that covers academic affairs. 
[05:17.10]He says that higher education is in a state of crisis. 
[05:20.86]For public universities alone, instate tuition rose 66 percent between 2002 and 2013 ¨C making it unaffordable for many Americans. 
[05:31.37]And that's even harder for parents of college age students to swallow, given the difficulty many kids have getting a job once they graduate. 
[05:38.87]Right now, we have this one-size-fits-all system that treats most students alike. 
[05:42.75]Students want a more flexible experience.  
[05:44.66]They want to have a chance to work.  
[05:46.21]They want to have a chance to study abroad. 
[05:47.58]They want to have a chance to learn online, as well as face-to-face. 
[05:51.21]This is where I think that higher education really needs to take--a cue from--a place like Enstitute and say, "how do we build into the curriculum, that kind of experiential learning?¡±
[06:00.60]I mean, they really see themselves as an alternative to college. Do you agree with that?
[06:04.91]I see them as an alternative to college-- at 18.  
[06:08.53]But having a college degree, at some point in your life, is still the best insurance against unemployment and getting higher salaries over the course of your lifetime. 
[06:18.90]Even so, more and more alternatives to colleges are popping up for a small number of students with an entrepreneurial bent.  
[06:26.65]Pay-pal founder Peter Thiel started a fellowship giving $100,000 to young adults to skip college and focus on entrepreneurship full time. 
[06:36.18]Uncollege Gap Year is a program in which young people design their own education paths by pursuing creative projects around the world.
[06:44.64]And the Mycelium School is a 9-month residential education program for young people interested in social entrepreneurship.
[06:52.27]Selingo says that these types of options, including apprenticeships for skilled trade jobs like electricians and carpenters should be encouraged.
[07:01.29]It used to be in the United States that apprenticeships were very big.  
[07:05.14]And the idea that not everybody necessarily went to college and that you kind of learned on the job.  
[07:10.86]And this still is true in other parts of the world.  
[07:13.18]In Germany, for example, a lot of students end up going to apprenticeships instead of college.
[07:19.09]As for Enstitute, new companies have already signed up as it plans to expand to 100 fellows and open offices in Washington DC and St. Louis this January.   
[07:30.37]And for Sebastian Stant, he's been offered a full time job with the company where he¡¯s doing his apprenticeship.  
[07:36.83]But he has ambitions to one day start his own business creating technical innovations in the political campaign field.
[07:44.81]What happens if your dreams of building a company aren't realized and you need to go into the job market? 
[07:51.29]So, and I think this kind of, like-- relieved my mom a little bit.  
[07:55.90]Is the idea of, like, college is always going to be there, and they're always going to want my tuition, and there's always going to have, like, space for me.  
[08:00.99]And so if worse comes to worse, like, I guess I can go back to college.