单选题 Read the following text. Choose the best word or phrase marked A, B, C or D for each numbered blank.
What do Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison have in {{U}} {{U}} 1 {{/U}} {{/U}}? They all made billions of dollars in technology. And they all left college. Now, a wealthy businessman is paying other technologically talented young people to follow that same {{U}} {{U}} 2 {{/U}} {{/U}}.
Peter Thiel is paying them to {{U}} {{U}} 3 {{/U}} {{/U}}or at least to "stop out" of higher education temporarily to work {{U}} {{U}} 4 {{/U}} {{/U}}their interests. He and his Thiel Foundation just announced the first group of what they call 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellows. "We selected people on the basis of a {{U}} {{U}} 5 {{/U}} {{/U}}of having demonstrated {{U}} {{U}} 6 {{/U}} {{/U}}passion about science and technology and then having the {{U}} {{U}} 7 {{/U}} {{/U}}to try to carry it forward in the years {{U}} {{U}} 8 {{/U}} {{/U}}," Peter Thiel said. There are twenty-four people to be exact, because a couple of projects {{U}} {{U}} 9 {{/U}} {{/U}}more than one person. One of the youngest is Laura Deming. At twelve she began researching ways to {{U}} {{U}} 10 {{/U}} {{/U}}human life. Now, at seventeen, she has already graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. All of the fellows will receive one hundred thousand dollars over two years to continue their research.
As a graduate of Stanford University, Mr. Thiel says college has changed. "It's gotten
{{U}} {{U}} 11 {{/U}} {{/U}}more expensive than when I attended school a quarter of a century ago. And so, if you look at how much college costs have gone up, you now have people graduating with a quarter million dollars {{U}} {{U}} 12 {{/U}} {{/U}}of debt and they end up having to spend years or decades paying the debt {{U}} {{U}} 13 {{/U}} {{/U}}," He noted.
The Obama {{U}} {{U}} 14 {{/U}} {{/U}}is pushing college. It says over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will {{U}} {{U}} 15 {{/U}} {{/U}}more than a high school education. But Peter Thiel says many young people choose college for the wrong reasons. They take higher education almost the same as the secondary education {{U}} {{U}} 16 {{/U}} {{/U}}not thinking about what they're going to do with their life.
Mr. Thiel says the young people he is {{U}} {{U}} 17 {{/U}} {{/U}}in are clear about what they want to do. At the very {{U}} {{U}} 18 {{/U}} {{/U}}, he says, they will {{U}} {{U}} 19 {{/U}} {{/U}}experience to take back to school if that is what they decide to do. More than four hundred people from twenty countries {{U}} {{U}} 20 {{/U}} {{/U}}the program. Later this year the Thiel Foundation plans to begin taking applications for the next group of fellows under the age of twenty.