Peter Thiel is trying harder than ever to get young people to skip college. Since 2010, Thiel, an early Facebook investor and a founder of PayPal Holdings, has offered to pay students $100,000 to drop out of school to start companies or nonprofits. Early on, he met intense criticism. Some accused Thiel, who holds philosophy and law degrees from Stanford, of hypocrisy. Others said it was wrong to discourage young people from finishing their education. Former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers called it the “single most misdirected bit of philanthropy in this decade." In the next few weeks, Thiel’s program...