Palantir CEO Alex Karp questions college degrees, then launches alternative career program

Palantir Technologies, whose stock price has more than tripled in the past year, is paying 22 high school graduates about $5,400 a month this fall to forgo college, with several of them turning down Ivy League offers to do so.

A “merit fellowship” offered by the data analytics giant prepares teens with a shortcut beyond a traditional degree: four months of training, including lectures in philosophy and history, and then the possibility of full-time engineering roles. Students were surprised as they spent their first month in seminars on Western Civilization and American History, with one participant admitting to a program lecturer that he had “never taken a note in his life” before the coursework, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While CEO Alex Karp describes US universities as “broke”, the company has not confirmed how many fellows will actually get job offers – or what happens to those who don’t qualify.

Why did Palantir create the software?

Karp has been vocal about the value of a college education, even though he holds three degrees: a bachelor’s degree from Haverford College, a J.D. from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. From Goethe University in Germany.

Earlier this year, he pointed out that where an employee goes to college ultimately doesn’t matter once they join the company.

“If you didn’t go to school or you went to a school that wasn’t great or you went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale, once you come to Blantyre, you’re a Blantyre. Nobody cares about the other stuff,” Karp said, according to a transcript of the Investing.com earnings call.

However, Palantir’s call to fellows suggests that he believes college degrees are becoming less useful and potentially detrimental to a career path. “American universities have lost their way…they reward conformity over originality, safety over risk, and comfort over truth,” the report stated. “Get over the debt. Reclaim years of your life. Get a Palantir degree.”

So what does this alternative “Palantir degree” actually teach? The company’s filing says that “our most vital technologies cannot be created by those indifferent to their purpose,” which is to “effectively defend the West.” This fall’s symposium included the biography of Frederick Douglass. A visit to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; and discussions of Lincoln and Churchill—topics that many colleagues would have encountered if they had taken AP classes in high school or, for that matter, in a typical liberal arts curriculum at university.

Palantir is now accepting applications for its next fellowship in New York City, running from August to December 2026. To be eligible, applicants must have graduated from high school and cannot be enrolled in college. The estimated salary for the position is $5,400 per month, although the job posting states it can be adjusted based on experience.

Employment image for university graduates

The new Palantir Fellowship was introduced at a time when the unemployment rate for recent college graduates is 4.8%, exceeding the 4.0% unemployment rate for all workers.

As the chart above shows, despite the challenging outlook for recent college graduates, those with college degrees have historically received a large and growing wage premium compared to those without college degrees.

The data, from a 2025 New York Fed analysis, found that as of 2024, the average college graduate earned about $80,000 versus $47,000 for those with just a high school diploma.