More Gen Zs or zillenials believe investing four years and a million bucks for a university degree was worthless. With the onslaught of AIs like ChatGPT and other enterprise models that are rapidly being adopted by companies across the globe. The frequent layoffs across even FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) are not helping it.
Per job portal Indeed’s latest report, half of Gen Zs feel college education obsolete as there is a growing trend of companies dropping four-year grad requirements in the eligibility criteria. More firms are asking for some exposure to Gen AI.
While the millennials are not as dismissive, they are also feeling the brunt. One-third of the millennials who participated in the study reported they feel the impact of AI has made the uni degrees redundant. Harris Poll conducted the study for Indeed, assessing 722 workers and job seekers in the US.
In his recent speech at Hamilton College, former US prez Barack Obama remarked that “You are better off with a liberal arts degree.”
Reactions poured in on social media with the internet divided over the poll. One netizen wrote, “Spent 4 years mastering Shakespeare while AI writes my emails, maybe that $100k degree should’ve included a ‘ChatGPT for Dummies’ module.” Another argued, “University education is a waste only if your sole measurement of value is how much money you can make with a degree.” Yet another remarked, “Four years of lectures, debt, and dorm food—only to get leapfrogged by a chatbot trained on Reddit. Gen Z didn’t get lazier. College got dumber.” One user quipped, “Don’t think AI can become baristas.” A millennial reacted, “Sorry GenZ. Degrees have been useless since the late 90’s… this is nothing new.”