The value of education in the shadows of AI

Thoughtful essay on the role of colleges in the age of AI:

The Question We Can No Longer Dodge

If AI can already produce an A– college essay in 30 seconds — on demand, at scale — then what exactly is college for?

Is it certification? Content delivery? A rite of passage? Social sorting?

Because if a machine can now flawlessly mimic the outputs we’ve long treated as evidence of learning, then the value of higher education can no longer rest on product. It must rest on the formation of actual human capability — judgment, originality, ethical reasoning, collaborative intelligence, and the ability to think in public under pressure.

Unless universities can actually do that— with conviction, not nostalgia; through redesign, not rhetoric — they will lose not only the public’s confidence, but something even more fatal: the employers’ trust that a degree still signals real human competence.