Palantir says college is no longer a reliable training ground—so it hired 22 high school students instead: ‘Skip the debt. Skip the indoctrination.'

While many college students across the U.S. are still knee-deep in their studies, one small cohort of pupils is about to turn their tassels. But instead of graduating from an elite university, they’re wrapping up a niche program at $452 billion tech giant Palantir .

The company’s Meritocracy Fellowship launched this April: a four-month, paid internship for recent high school graduates not enrolled in college. The program required Ivy League-level test scores to quality, and attracted over 500 applicants, with only 22 teenagers making the cut—a mix of those who felt attending college wasn’t compelling, or didn’t get into their dream schools, according to WSJ reporting . During their stint, the pupils learned about U.S. history and foundations of the West, working alongside Palant