College is expensive, and a growing number of skeptics have questioned its value proposition. Palantir CEO Alex Karp has said it doesn’t really matter where his employees went to college, and Apple CEO Tim Cook has said a four-year degree isn’t even required to work at the company. The rise of AI has only added to doubts of a degree’s value. But some economists say college still holds some implicit value, like teaching students things AI could never learn how to do.
Carl Benedikt Frey is an economist at the University of Oxford and the author of a famous 2013 paper that estimated automation could put nearly half of U.S. jobs at risk. He paints a troubling picture for the future of white-collar US jobs, saying as AI advances, high-skilled work is more likely to be offshored.
“If AI makes these jobs easier, you will see more activities shifting towards places where labor is cheaper, whether that’s India or the Philippines,” Frey told Fortune. “I think that’s going to put a lot of pressure on people’s wages doing knowledge work.”
Despite his estimation, Frey says earning a college degree is still worthwhile, as it imparts three core skills in which humans hold a competitive edge over AI: complex social interactions, creativity, and navigating complex environments.
