斯坦福大学校长谈大学教育

来源：财富中文网

大学学费越来越贵，而大学毕业生的就业率却不尽人意，引发了人们对于大学教育的质疑。斯坦福大学校长约翰•汉尼斯认为，在未来不确定的经济环境中，大学教育将会更凸显其价值。

When John Hennessy became the tenth president of Stanford University in 2000, Silicon Valley was at the height of the dot-com bubble. More than a decade later, the Internet has matured and a new crop of companies built on top of it are fueling another investment boom. In a recent interview, Hennessy discussed the boom-versus-bubble question. He also addressed the student-loan crisis, the nuance of educating a generation of multitaskers, and the broader role that Stanford will play in the future of Silicon Valley. A lightly edited transcript follows.

ADAM LASHINSKY: So, I want to start on the subject of costs. And so I've heard the number that an elite school charges about $60,000 a year. I don't know if that's a Stanford number or an average number.

JOHN HENNESSY: I'd say 55,000, all in, books, tuition, room and board. Yeah, that's a kind of reasonable number.

ADAM LASHINSKY: And you've said that the education, at least at Stanford, number one, costs more than that --

JOHN HENNESSY: Yes.

ADAM LASHINSKY: -- and number two, that if your income is below a certain level, then you're going to get a discount all the way up to 100 percent.

So, I want to ask you, first of all, why does an education cost more than that?

JOHN HENNESSY: It's driven by wage costs. Faculty members are well-educated, high income, reasonably high income earning people, as you would find in other places where people have largely graduate degrees.

I think steps to improve quality over time have actually increased costs: smaller classes, more hands-on, more safety net for the students, so if a student is struggling there's somebody to help them out, right? All these things I think have added costs over time. And we haven't had any significant real productivity increases.

ADAM LASHINSKY: Your comment would suggest that the quality of higher education is generally higher now than it was a generation or two generations ago, and I suppose it's a two-part question. To be fair to you as the president of Stanford, first part, is the quality higher at Stanford? Secondly, is the quality higher generally across the United States?

JOHN HENNESSY: I'd say the quality -- the quality is higher at Stanford, primarily because of things we introduced.

So, for example, we introduced a set of freshmen seminars. There's a small seminar. Every single freshman can enroll in one, 15 students and a faculty member, and it's really meant to be an engaging intellectual experience. You meet a faculty member up close, you get to see they're real people, not monsters, you know, all the kinds of things you like. That obviously costs more money. Now, we raise most of the money to support that, but it adds to the cost.

I think in general there was a lack of attention on undergraduate education, and that starting in about 1990 began to see a return to the roots of high quality undergraduate education in the research institutions. So, that's gotten better.

The real struggle that exists right now is for our public institutions. They're in a really tough situation and their budgets are being cut and cut and cut and cut.

And so it may be hard to say that the quality of their education, at best it's leveled out and at worse, particularly if you consider the fact that it may take more than four years to get a degree now, it's actually gone down somewhat.

ADAM LASHINSKY: And so what will give here? If the education costs more than students are paying, and even what they're paying they're going deeply into debt, and this is seen as something of a national crisis, how and where and when do we reach equilibrium on this?

JOHN HENNESSY: So, I think we have a two-part crisis. The biggest piece of it is students who go to school, spend a lot of money, borrow a lot of money, use federal grants, and then don't complete their degree, because they don't have a lot to show for that investment, right?

We've also got the problem of students who spend a lot, who borrow a lot, complete a degree but then can't make anything useful with that.

For the vast majority of students who actually finish their degree the return on investment is pretty good. A recent analysis shows that it exceeds 10 percent a year. So, that's a pretty good return, I mean, be very happy with that return.

I think the problem is we've got to attack the rest of that. That means dealing with why don't students graduate, which I think the biggest problem is inadequate preparation. We send too many kids to college who are not really ready to be in college. And teaching them remedial material at college, at college costs, that's a ridiculous thing to do.

ADAM LASHINSKY: What are going to do exactly about that?

JOHN HENNESSY: I think we're going to use -- I think we're going to have to use technology to attack that problem.

ADAM LASHINSKY: Instead why don't we come together from a policy perspective and send fewer students to college?

JOHN HENNESSY: We might. We might. Maybe we should be sending fewer students at least to four-year colleges. We should be sending more students to community colleges. And by the way, we should make sure they finish their two-year degree. I mean, the community colleges struggle with getting students through, too, many unprepared students, and there's data out there that shows that financial stress, the cost of paying for college is one of the major reasons students drop out. So, we need to address this issue, and I'm hopeful technology can be part of that.

ADAM LASHINSKY: But before I ask you about how technology could be part of it, have we as a country guilted people into thinking that they need a college degree to succeed where they don't necessarily need one?

JOHN HENNESSY: You know, I think you don't necessarily need one, but if I were a young person going out to the workforce expecting to work for the next 40, 45, maybe 50 years of my life, because realistically I think that's what retirement ages will look like 20, 30, 40 years from now, is there great value in a college education when you're going to have multiple careers over that period of time? Probably. And in terms of -- in a time of great economic uncertainty, which is probably what's going to be in the future rather than the certainty we've had, then a college education is probably more valuable. There will be fewer -- you will not be able to get the kind of jobs that will provide the quality of life that most Americans hope for without a college education

约翰•汉尼斯在2000年成为斯坦福大学（Stanford University）第十任校长，这时的硅谷正处于互联网泡沫的鼎盛时期。10多年后，互联网已经发展成熟，一大批新的互联网企业正在推动又一场投资盛宴。在最近的采访中，汉尼斯探讨了繁荣与泡沫问题，并谈到了学生贷款危机，培养复合型人才的不同之处，以及斯坦福大学在硅谷的未来中所扮演的更加宽广的角色。以下是采访的内容（略有编辑）。

亚当•拉辛斯基：我想从学校费用谈起。听说精英学校每年的收费为6万美元左右。我不知道这是斯坦福大学的收费还是平均数字。

约翰•汉尼斯：我们是5.5万美元，所有都包括在内，比如书本费、学费和食宿。这个收费很合理。

亚当•拉辛斯基：你曾说，首先，教育费用高于那个数字，至少斯坦福大学是如此。

约翰•汉尼斯：是的。

亚当•拉辛斯基：其次，如果收入低于某个水平，就能够获得最高100%的折扣。

因此，我首先想问你的是，为什么教育费用会高于那个数字？

约翰•汉尼斯：工资成本推高了教育费用。教职人员受过良好教育，收入很高，是合理的高收入人群。在大多数人都拥有研究生学位的其他地方也会发现这一点。

我认为，逐步改善教育质量的措施确实增加了成本：更小的班级，更多的实际操作，为学生提供更好的安全网。那么，如果某位学生遇到了困难，就会有人帮助他们摆脱困境，对吧？我认为所有这些都逐渐推高了成本。但实际生产力并没有显著提高。

亚当•拉辛斯基：你是说现在的高等教育质量普遍高于一两代人之前。我认为这个问题包含两个部分。首先，公平地说，作为斯坦福大学的校长，你是否认为斯坦福的教育质量提高了？其次，美国各地的教育质量是否普遍提高了？

约翰•汉尼斯：斯坦福的教育质量确实提高了，这主要是受益于我们采取的措施。

比如，我们成立了新生研讨班。这是很小的研讨班，每位新生都可以参加。每个班有15名学生和一位老师。这是非常有吸引力的知识体验。你可以和老师近距离接触，你会发现他们也是真实的人，不是什么怪物。你会喜欢这些东西的。这显然要花更多的钱。现在，我们已经筹集到了大部分资金来支持这个项目，但这会增加成本。

我认为，总的来说，对本科教育的关注度不够。大概是在1990年，研究型教育机构开始重新重视高质量的本科教育。因此，情况有所改善。

目前，真正的问题存在于我们的公共教育机构。它们处境艰难，预算被再三削减。

很难说它们的教育质量如何，往好了说是持平，往坏了说是有点下滑，尤其是考虑到可能需要4年多时间才能获得学位。

亚当•拉辛斯基：这将产生什么后果呢？如果教育费用超过了学生的支付能力，甚至超过了他们背负沉重债务后所具有的支付能力，那么这会被视为全国性的危机。我们怎么做、什么时候才能实现教育费用和学生支付能力的平衡呢？

约翰•汉尼斯：我认为我们遇到了两个部分的危机。最大的那部分危机是那些来到学校、花了很多钱、借了很多钱、利用了联邦助学金、但没能完成学位的学生。之所以这么说，是因为他们没有太多的东西来证明那种投资的价值，对吧？

危机的另一个部分是那些花了很多钱、借了很多钱、完成了学位、但没有做出任何成绩的学生。

对于完成了学位的绝大部分学生，投资回报是相当可观的。近期的分析显示，这种回报率每年超过10%。因此，这是相当高的回报，非常令人满意。

我认为，问题在于我们必须解决其余的学生。也就是说，我们必须解决学生为什么不能毕业的问题。我认为最大的问题是学生们准备不足。我们把太多的孩子送进了大学，但他们并没有真正准备好。我们在大学里按照大学收费的标准来给他们补习，这真是荒唐可笑。

亚当•拉辛斯基：对此我们究竟应该怎么做？

约翰•汉尼斯：我认为我们应该利用——我认为我们不得不利用科技来解决这个问题。

亚当•拉辛斯基：为什么我们不能从政策角度来解决问题，让更少的学生去读大学？

约翰•汉尼斯：或许可以。或许可以。我们应该让更少的学生去读四年制大学，让更多的学生去读社区大学。随便说一句，我们应该确保他们完成两年制学位。我想说的是，社区大学也很难使学生完成学业，很多学生都没有做好准备。有数据显示，财务压力，支付给大学的费用是学生辍学的主要原因之一。因此，我们需要解决这个问题，我希望科技会是解决方法的一部分。

亚当•拉辛斯基：我想问你科技如何成为解决方法的一部分。但在此之前，我想先问问你，我们这个国家是否使人们认为，他们需要一个大学学位才能获得成功，但实际上他们没必要拥有大学学位？

约翰•汉尼斯：你知道吗，我认为你不必拥有大学学位，但如果我是一位加入劳动力大军的年轻人，我希望在今后40、45甚至50年里继续工作，因为实际上我认为退休是20、30、40年后的事情。在这段时间里，你可能会换很多个工作，那么大学教育还有重要的价值吗？很有可能。在未来，经济可能将充满不确定性，不会像以前那样稳定，这时大学教育可能更有价值。可以提供大多数美国人所希望的生活质量的工作将会更少，如果没有获得大学教育，你将无法得到这类工作。