The job market offers no guarantees. Mechanization has wiped out once-stable manufacturing careers. Artificial intelligence (AI) is now appearing in the next generation of jobs that were once thought to be safe, including software coding and back-office operations. So what can we do about it?
Despite some overstated concerns, there are reasons to be optimistic about the future of technology. It has the potential to bring about a better quality of life and broader prosperity — ultimately. To thrive in this future, workers will need new skills and a different education. And that means rethinking how we approach college and what we want it to offer us.
Most college degrees are rewarding not only because of higher wages, but also because they mean that graduates are less likely to be unemployed or will be unemployed for a shorter period of time. Education has become more important and more people are going to college. The percentage of the population aged 25 and over who received post-secondary education doubled from 1980 to 2021, to more than 60%. This has increased the supply of graduates and also reduced the wage premium for university degrees.
More people going to college also means worse outcomes. Meanwhile, the price of education is skyrocketing. So it’s no wonder so many people are asking if college is worth going to.
is. In fact, as new technology emerges, it will become more valuable than ever.
If the past is any guide, success in an age of technological innovation requires adaptability and finding different ways to add value. For example, machines that could weave cloth on a large scale displaced many workers, but there were still jobs for skilled craftsmen who produced products of superior quality. I had to learn how. It has not been an easy transition. There have been many social upheavals and displacements. It took decades for workers to adapt as the way the population was educated changed for the new economy. Industrialization is a big reason why we adopted universal public education.
Today’s technology undoubtedly poses more challenges as some white collar jobs will also disappear. So far, large language models like ChatGPT are good at integrating existing information to have a decent discussion or find a solution to a problem. Technology will only get more powerful, but its creative capabilities will likely be limited.
Psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer argues that AI is well suited for tasks like chess, where risks are well defined and parameters are stable. I’m not very good at dealing with uncertainties. The latter are more likely to be faced, as past data and knowledge tell us little about the rapidly changing future. Historical data can even be misleading. Gigerenzer believes that human judgment is still important and could become even more valuable to people learning to use new technology properly.
Interpersonal skills are also highly valued. High touch human time will be the rarest commodity. Most importantly, you need to constantly learn new things and adapt quickly to thrive.
In short, success comes to those who know how to think and think well. This means that students must develop critical thinking skills as part of their education.
To get a college degree, you need two things. Different expectations and class choices on the part of students, and universities and colleges revamping their approach to curriculum. Even before AI came along, society struggled to understand what higher education had to offer. American universities were originally intended as liberal arts institutions aimed at developing balanced and thoughtful leaders. In contrast to the European model, in which students specialize early, American students were meant to be exposed to many different disciplines.
This was reasonable if only a small portion of the population went to college and the cost was not too high. But expectations have changed as more people have access to higher education and costs have risen. Students wanted a more professional, career-focused education and were less interested in reading Plato. Many students struggle to apply their degrees to the job market, making the education they receive tougher. One study found that 45% of her students had little improvement in their critical thinking skills in the first few years.
While it’s understandable that people want a clearer path from degree to career, treating college strictly as vocational education limits students’ skills. Now that critical and creative thinking skills are even more important, American schools must embrace and improve upon their original mission to develop well-rounded thinkers.
Preston Cooper, a fellow at the Equal Opportunity Research Foundation who studies the value of degrees, says there are ways to make college majors more practical or integrate the humanities. For example, a high-paying degree such as nursing may include more liberal arts classes. More traditional humanities majors such as history may include courses in marketing and communications. This imparts both hard skills and broad thinking abilities, making students a more employable and adaptable workforce.
In the short term, students will have to challenge themselves and take the initiative to make their college education more AI-friendly. They should look for classes that make them think more rigorously, such as math, probability, and statistics. Then balance history with the humanities learning how to write well. (AI may write more for us in the future, but knowing how to write well can help clarify and organize your thoughts.) Students should explore the great minds of the past and create a reading list that allows them to ponder how to apply their insights. to the present age. Here are some I recommend as a starting point:
- Plato — The Republic — A great book on the nature of education and its relationship to politics.
- Machiavelli — The Prince — on how to get as lucky as humanly possible!
- Abraham Lincoln’s Greatest Speech — Politician Spirit at its Highest Level.
- Hannah Arendt — The Origins of Totalitarianism — Perspectives on how to respond to attempts to dehumanize.
- Roderick Floud and Deirdre McCloskey — British Economic History — How Markets Are Born and How They Change the World?
Face it, harder classes mean more work and may mean worse grades. This is how they get more value out of their degree, and in the new economy more than ever. The sooner they start, the better.
Alison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist for economics. A Senior Fellow of the Manhattan Institute, she is the author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understanding Risk.”
