Silicon Valley says to skip college

Across the country, a growing sentiment suggests the university degree is an artifact of a bygone era, a depreciating asset in an economy obsessed with speed. A recent Gallup poll confirms this shift, revealing that Americans’ confidence in the value of a college education has plummeted to a 15-year low.

Nowhere is this skepticism louder than in my own backyard. In Silicon Valley, the “skip college” mantra has evolved from a “hot take” to accepted wisdom. Fueled by the rise of generative AI, the logic is seductive: If artificial intelligence can code, write copy, and analyze data faster than a junior employee, why spend four years and a small fortune on skills a bot will master before you graduate?

It is a compelling argument. It is also fundamentally wrong.

As the CEO of an AI company, I witness the trajectory of automation daily. I see exactly what our models can do, and I recognize the massive disruption coming for knowledge work. Yet, my conclusion is the exact opposite of the current narrative.

As AI automates technical execution, the core purpose of the university sharpens. Far from making college obsolete, the AI revolution is making the benefits of higher education like wisdom, maturity, and the forging of mental models, the most critical economic differentiator a human can possess.

THE COMMODITY OF “HOW,” THE VALUE OF “WHY”

For the last two decades, higher education has been sold largely as vocational training. You go to school to learn a hard skill like computer science, accounting, or law, that you then trade for a salary. Under this transactional model, the skeptics are right. If college is just a place to download technical syntax into your brain, it is inefficient. AI is rapidly demonetizing the ability to simply do things.

However, the university’s true value was never entirely the how but it was always the why.

In an AI-native world, the technical barrier to entry is collapsing. Soon, natural language will be the only programming language required. When anyone can build an app, draft a legal brief, or design a product with a few prompts, execution becomes a commodity. The premium shifts to the ability to discern what to build, why it matters, and how it impacts the human ecosystem.

This requires a type of thinking that is rarely self-taught. It requires the kind of broad, interdisciplinary exposure that a university curriculum provides. We don’t need more people who can optimize a sorting algorithm; we need people who can debate the ethics of that algorithm, understand the sociological impact of its deployment, and navigate the geopolitical landscape it operates within.

COLLEGE AS SCAFFOLDING FOR THE MIND

Beyond the curriculum, the “skip college” contingent ignores the university’s profound developmental role. They view the four-year degree as a delay of adulthood. I view it as the necessary scaffolding for it.

The years between 18 and 22 are a neurological and psychological crucible. The brain is finalizing its development; identities are solidifying. The university environment provides a unique sandbox where young adults can collide with diverse philosophies, navigate complex social hierarchies, and fail in a relatively low-stakes environment.

When I hire for leadership roles, I rarely seek the fastest coder in the room. I seek resilience. I seek the ability to collaborate with dissenting voices and the maturity to navigate ambiguity. These are traits honed in lecture halls, seminar debates, and student organizations just as much as they are in internships.

THE SHELF-LIFE OF SKILLS VERSUS MINDSET

Critics often weigh the cost of tuition against the starting salary of a graduate’s first job. But in a world of accelerating technological velocity, the specific skills learned at 20 are often obsolete by 25. To skip college for a specific trade or tech stack is to bet one’s career on a snapshot in time.

A university education, particularly one grounded in the liberal arts and fundamental sciences, plays a longer game. It teaches you how to learn. It builds a mental operating system capable of updating itself.

Consider the “hallucination” problem in large language models. To effectively use these tools, a human must possess critical thinking skills robust enough to audit the machine. They need a foundational knowledge of history, logic, and science to discern when the AI is fabricating reality.

The worker who skips college risks becoming a passive consumer of AI output while the college graduate becomes its orchestrator. That is a difference in career trajectory that may not appear in year-one earnings, but compounds exponentially over a lifetime.

A CALL FOR A HUMAN RENAISSANCE

Silicon Valley loves efficiency. We love to optimize. And yes, the modern university is often inefficient, expensive, and bureaucratic. It is ripe for disruption and reform.

But let’s not confuse the need for reform with the need for abolition. The “skip college” narrative is an oversimplification. It assumes that because machines are becoming more intelligent, humans can afford to be less educated.

The opposite is true. As we hand over more cognitive labor to AI, we free humans to operate at the peak of their intelligence. We are entering an era where philosophy, ethics, creative synthesis, and interpersonal leadership will be the most high-value skills in the global economy.

We should not encourage the next generation to skip the one institution dedicated to developing those traits. We should encourage them to go, but with a new purpose. Do not go to college just to get a job. Go to college to build the kind of complex, adaptable, and nuanced mind that no AI can replicate.

The future isn’t about competing with machines. It is about becoming more human. That is an education worth the investment.

Bhavin Shah is CEO and cofounder of Moveworks.