He believes that the college education of the future will rely more on activity than institutions. "Except that at the end of it you don't have a house." "College costs the same amount of money as a house in most parts of the country," Khan says. "But it's a lie." As hundreds of thousands of graduates find themselves unable to find work, Khan has joined a growing number of skeptics, whose ranks include both Occupy Wall Street protesters and PayPal founder Peter Thiel. "Colleges are selling students on the idea that it's the best investment," he says. But the MIT grad thinks college has devolved into a mere credentialing system.
In his usual jeans and sneakers, Khan could easily be mistaken for a student at nearby Stanford. Combating a one-size-fits-all ethos is key to Khan's philosophy. He has hired additional faculty members to make the videos for the academy's latest venture: a program for brick-and-mortar schools, in which students can use software for the first 20 minutes of class before a live teacher takes over, allowing students to progress at their own pace. Khan's free online course list is now drawing 3.5 million unique viewers a month. By early 2009 Khan had quit his job at Wohl Capital Management and set up the nonprofit academy, which has received the Gates Foundation and the O'Sullivan Foundation. Soon he began expanding the scope of his videos, and before long college students were using them. His project began as a series of YouTube videos Khan made for his cousins in 2006 to help them in math.
Khan's plan, unlike the venue, is not a modest one the founder of perhaps the most popular education website in the world right now () wants to build the schools of the future. As he announces this, the 35-year-old former hedge fund manager is sitting in Dana Street Roasting Company, right around the corner from the Khan Academy's headquarters in Mountain View, California. If Salman Khan has anything to do with it, within five years everyone will be educated online - for free.
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