可汗学院掌门人：打造网上免费哈佛

    在美国，学生贷款债务已接近一万亿美元之巨的历史记录。毕业即失业的法学院毕业生们正在以虚假宣传罪名起诉他们的母校。毋庸置疑，高等教育的高昂成本（更别提投资回报了）已经成为很多人心头的痛。

    大选在即，奥巴马政府也不敢对这些怨言充耳不闻。奥巴马总统在国情咨文中谈到了这个话题，政府随后采取了相应举措来遏制大学学费的上涨。具体的做法是将学校获得联邦援助的可能性与学生能否负担得起该校的学费相挂钩。本月早些时候，副总统乔•拜登、教育部长（Secretary of Education）阿恩•邓肯和参议员约翰•克里分别前往一些大学校宣传这一举措。很多人在对难以承受的大学学费表示不满的同时，开始怀念过去那些世界一流的公立院校的做法，这些公立院校对很多学生免收学费，比如纽约城市大学（The City University of New York）和加利福尼亚大学（The University of California）。

    萨尔•可汗的可汗学院（Khan Academy）是一家免费的、非盈利性教育网站，拥有超过2,800个视频课程，并得到了来自谷歌（Google）和盖茨基金（Gates Foundation）的资金支持。至少在精神层面上来看，它继承了免费教育这一传统。数月前，萨尔•可汗准备在达拉斯举办的州立大学未来论坛（the Future of State Universities Conference）上发表讲话之前，《财富》杂志（Fortune）借机对他进行了专访。整理后的对话记录如下。

    财富：您网站上的计数器显示，可汗学院为用户提供课程的次数不久将达到1.2亿次。这些用户有哪些地方最让您感到惊讶？

    萨尔•可汗：让我惊讶的是，很多人的学习积极性非常高。一般来说，人们可能不会觉得这些人会是积极好学的学生。因为他们都是些曾经被中学、大学开除的学生。他们曾经很讨厌学习。

    上周我与来自几家企业的首席学习官座谈。一位女士走过来对我说：“我丈夫过去非常痛恨学校。他有阅读障碍。他以前是一位消防员。但自从开始接触视频课程，他就喜欢上了学习，尤其是数学和物理。后来他重新进入了大学，并获得了数学和物理学的学位，还获得了物理学硕士学位，现在他是一名物理教师。”

    这就是活生生的现实。生活中有很多这样的人，他们在传统教育模式下会倍感挫败和疏。，因为传统教育模式总是过早地对人的学习能力下结论，给人贴上标签，不允许学生按照自己的进度展开学习。

您认为可汗学院提供的课程服务有何局限性？

    主要的局限在于，我们不能为学习者授予正式的学位证书。我们收到了很多人的来信，说他们不会再去课堂上课。他们去参加学校考试也只是为了拿到学位证书。我们很清楚这种情况。因为我们自己在大学里也是这样。

    我们所能做的说到底只是教与学。我们可以给予学生奖励和徽章，但这些只能让他们感到光荣，却不能放到简历中去。

说到简历和证书，现在拥有学位的人越来越多了，但有种看法认为，这些东西已经越来越无法代表人们在工作岗位上的表现。您是怎么看的？

    对于现有的教育体系，确实存在这种情况。不论是我们，还是谷歌（Google）或Facebook，都不得不实行严格的招聘流程。因为我们并不清楚计算机科学课程拿到4.0的成绩到底能够说明什么问题。我觉得重点不在于培养多少具有电子工程或计算机科学专业背景的人，而在于如何培养学生，确保他们在各自的专业领域内能够拥有出色的表现。

    Student debt is nearing a record $1 trillion in the U.S. Jobless law school grads are suing their alma maters for false advertising. Needless to say, the cost of higher education -- not to mention the return on the investment -- has become a sore spot for many.

    With an election on the horizon, the Obama Administration has not been deaf to the grumbling. The president addressed the topic in his State of the Union, and his administration has since launched a campaign to stem the rise in college tuition by tying a school's federal aid prospects to its affordability. Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Senator John Kerry were dispatched to university campuses earlier this week to tout the plan. In all the tut-tut over college affordability, there been some nostalgia for the time when some world-class, public universities -- The City University of New York and The University of California, for example -- didn't charge any tuition for many of its students.

    Salman Khan's Khan Academy -- a free, nonprofit education site with more than 2,800 video lessons and financial backing from the likes of Google (GOOG) and the Gates Foundation -- has picked up this mantle, at least in spirit. Fortune caught up with Khan a few months ago while he was just about to speak at the Future of State Universities Conference in Dallas. Here is an edited transcript of the conversation.

    Fortune: Judging from the counter on your site, it looks like Khan Academy is not too far away from delivering its 120-millionth lesson. What has surprised you the most about all those users?

    Sal Khan: I've been surprised at how motivated a lot of people are that you wouldn't traditionally think would be that kind of a motivated student. They were the kid who failed out of college, failed out of high school, hated academics.

    I gave a talk last week to a bunch of chief learning officers from companies and one woman came by and said, "My husband hated school. He's dyslexic. He was a fireman and he just started watching the videos and he got really into it. He got really into math, really into physics. Went back to college, got a math degree and a physics degree, a master's in physics, and is now teaching physics."

    And so, it's this reality that there are people like that out there that have completely gotten frustrated and disengaged with the traditional model that tends to judge you and label you in very early stages and really doesn't let you learn at your own pace.

What would you say are the limitations of what you are offering at Khan Academy?

    The main limitation is we're not granting people formal credentials. We get a lot of letters from people, they're not going to class anymore. And they're just showing up to take an exam to get a credential. And we all know that happens. We did a little bit of that ourselves in college.

    At the end of the day, the most that we can do is teach and learn. We can give someone rewards and badges to make them feel good, but they can't put that on their resumes just yet.

Speaking of resumes and credentials, it seems like more people are getting degrees, but they say less and less about how well someone will perform on the job. What's your take?

    It's a bit of a statement on the existing system that us or Google or Facebook have to have such a rigorous interview process because we really don't know what a 4.0 in computer science means any more. I think the conversation has to go beyond getting more people to major in electrical engineering or computer science. The conversation is how do we equip people so that they can actually perform well in that type of environment?