Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla predicts education will be free, and the future of college is ‘a real question’

One of the most influential venture capitalists in Silicon Valley says the tradition of a four-year college education is up in the air.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, told Fortune editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell on the Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast that when everything can be learned or achieved through technology, abundance will rule. 

“All education should be free,” Khosla said, while noting the fate of universities themselves is “a real question.” 

To be sure, people like the idea of institutions, he added. But in a world where technology rules and higher education is free, attending college may be more like a hobby than a necessity.

“You won’t need a college to get an engineering degree. You won’t even need the engineering degree, except if your passion is learning,” Khosla said.

The shift away from traditional higher education that Khosla predicted may already be underway among young people today. A Gallup poll from September found only 35% of Americans say going to college is “very important”—a record low, and down from more than half who said the same in 2019.

As soaring tuition costs and a shaky job market have eroded confidence in the four-year degree, another sur...