[PhoenixAzul]

This is all well and good...but what happens if the idea flops, big time? You've got people with good ideas and no qualification, in a job market with people with good ideas and good qualifications. The companies that "innovate" still hire people based on a resume. It would be awesome to be able to roll up to an interview and talk about all the ideas I have for redoing their museums, but that would be ridiculous and that's not what they're after...they want to know what I can do, and what I know, and where I learned it.

So let us say that for some reason, a kid gets one of these fellowships. Think wayyyy back (or not so way back) to when you were that age. What would you have done with $100k a year in salary? Now think about what it will be like at the end of those two years:

1) you could have a wonderful idea/product, and it takes off, and life is grand. Awesome, rock on.
2) the idea flops big time, and now you're left to either re-apply to university, or enter the job market without qualifications.

If it were me, I'd just keep innovating in my dorm room and working on it as a side project. The truly innovative, the truly creative, will always find a way, in or out of university.