For high school students with aspirations in the tech field it is like the MIT, Caltech and Stanford all rolled into one. It may be sort of comparable to that

For high school students with aspirations in the tech field it is like the MIT, Caltech and Stanford all rolled into one. It may be sort of comparable to that in terms of fostering startup-oriented skills and business connections. If that's your only measuring stick, that is. But in terms of developing a solid intellectual foundation for dealing with the world (which just so happens to involve other aspects than the skills necessary to create a hot tech startup) -- just on first principles - there's no way the educational benefit of an accelerator program can compare with the core foundational training of top-tier 4 year STEM program. You know, in things like math, science, and yes, liberal arts and overall personal development.