What can universities truly offer students if tech firms value experience over degrees?

As someone who hustled their way to growth strategist from a content editor, I can safely say, it can be done. I think today, AI is reducing the need for university. Now, there are still some soft skills that can't be taught, but do I think they are taught in universities only? Not necessarily. You can learn on the job; AI only enables that.

That’s a really important question, @busmark_w_nika, and one I wrestle with myself as a doctoral student, a business owner, and someone immersed in tech.

The challenge is that we often reduce universities to “degree factories” when, at their best, they are actually structured laboratories for learning how to learn. The diploma itself may be losing weight in the job market, but the processes, exposures, and guardrails you develop in an academic setting—the ability to sift theory from noise, to frame questions rigorously, to engage with perspectives and methodologies outside your own—those things compound over a lifetime. They don’t always show up on a résumé, but they shape how you problem-solve and how you adapt.

Experience is critical, and tech firms are right to reward people who can show results early. But experience without a scaffold of reflection can end up being narrow. University offers, or should offer, that scaffold: a safe but demanding space to test, fail, re-orient, and see the “why” behind the “what.” It’s not just about content; it’s about building meta-skills—critical thinking, synthesis, ethical reasoning, and even resilience.

I don’t believe the old model will survive untouched. Universities that cling to gatekeeping and rigid end-goals will feel irrelevant. The future of education probably looks more modular, experiential, and lifelong: degrees blending with micro-credentials, projects blending with research, and classrooms bleeding into labs, communities, and companies.

For me, the real added value of universities isn’t the paper at the end. It’s the way they can shape you into someone who knows how to learn, why to learn, and how to reframe what you already know when the world shifts—which, in tech especially, it always does.

Universities or schools as is will die they need to evolve thanks for putting together these facts and numbers.

The industry requirement has shifted but nature of learning remains the same, we learn by experimenting and practicing in safe environments. Universities can become incubators and provide a safe place to try new things and fail as a norm rather than exception. They can support good performers by connecting them with alumni links out of uni world. It happens in sports already, the players are groomed inside the uni and then compete in tournaments nationally. I think every university must emphasise on incubation approach, big ones are already doing it but now all of them have to do it.

This is such a good question. I feel like universities will either double down on research/innovation hubs or become optional for most careers.

I've done it kind of backwards.. already have the experience and now I am going back to do an MBA simply to check the box.

But what I have found is the best subjects I've completed have been embedded with real companies and trying to solve real world problems.

If more universities focused on this, students would leave with no only the degree but also a CV of problems and solutions they've solved during their course, and experience with x amount of companies.

I've been offered a handful of jobs as part of my MBA experience, while being embedded with these companies. Although I'm not interested, this is another avenue for students to find roles that they are interested in (and also for employers and companies to find students who are a good fit).

Yeah, the math has changed. Experience and results are the new currency, no doubt.

But universities aren’t just about the piece of paper anymore (if they ever were). Where I see them still mattering: structured environments for disciplined thinking, exposure to concepts you’d never stumble into on PH, X or Reddit, and a network that scales beyond your DMs.

Most universities are moving at least five years too slow. The ones that win will act more like startup accelerators.

If “checking the box” is all you do at uni, you’re wasting your time. But if you treat it like a safe sandbox for compounding the right skills and habits, it can still give you an edge, especially in messy, global markets where fast, shallow learning doesn’t always cut it.

Also, people are less concerned about their future when they're a student, it's necessary for the vibe :D

I believe young people will always bring fresh ideas and inspiration. The role of university education is to provide a solid professional foundation that allows these ideas to flourish — if it can do that, then it’s successful. Beyond keeping the core curriculum relevant to the times, well-designed internships and research opportunities, both on and off campus, are equally crucial. Graduates trained in this way won’t need to worry about companies that only care about “experience,” because they’ll already have both the knowledge base and the practical exposure to stand out.