Billionaire hedge funder James Simons had some harsh words for Peter Thiel’s efforts to pay students to skip college.

“I think it’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. I mean, really, ‘We don’t need training, let’s just get out there and do it,’ ” the old-school Simons said incredulously at a breakfast hosted by the IESE Business School on Thursday.

Thiel, the entrepreneur known for co-founding PayPal as well as funding Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker Media, has long been critical of higher education.

He founded the Thiel Fellowship in 2011. The two-year program pays students $100,000 to skip college and pursue their entrepreneurial ideas with guidance.

“Maybe there’s one or two people a year who could benefit from that,” Simons said.

Simons holds a Ph.D. in mathematics and worked in acadamia prior to launching his $50 billion Renaissance Technologies fund in 1982.