Universities will still act as gatekeepers of prestige and status. There is no AI alternative to the top-20 schools...I remember all the hype from 10-15 years ago about how online learning and "MIT courseware" would upend the universities or threaten credentialism, and nothing even close to that happened. As it turned out, the online version of MIT is not a substitute for the actual thing.

Schools will adapt, as they have already, by weighing grading more towards in-class quizzes and tests . I think the humanities will continue to struggle, but I see the AI boom making STEM more relevant, even if AI can automate a lot of code or math.

>As it turned out, the online version of MIT is not a substitute for the actual thing.

More precisely, the people motivated enough to actually do the online MIT version were often already on a high-performance trajectory, and for the people who were not, few people took the online credential seriously, despite whatever skills they acquired.

That’s because the value of the university is the assessment, not the education itself.

They are vouching for the intelligence, knowledge acquisition and work ethic of their graduates. If they lose that signal, they lose the ability to gate keep prestige and status.

On the other hand, it would be really good if universities stopped being gatekeepers of prestige and status. It seems like some of the biggest idiots in high visibility posts right now come from the ivy league..

I'm not sure if an ivy league education proves anything anymore other than that you're connected.

> by weighing grading more towards in-class quizzes and tests

The piece discusses blue book tests where students were still cheating with their phones providing AI responses