Over the Fourth of July weekend, my dad, my son, and I went on one of our annual boys club fishing trips.

Between catching countless panfish, my dad brought up a topic that instantly transported me back to my teenage years.

He told me that I needed to do everything possible to get my son into a prestigious Ivy League university.

To him, this was obvious.

To me, it was deeply unsettling.

I spent most of the conversation trying to explain that artificial intelligence is fundamentally changing the economics of higher education. A degree from an elite university simply does not offer the same value proposition that it did thirty years ago.

Unfortunately, that argument went nowhere.

Instead, it reminded me of just how much pressure I experienced growing up.

Like many Asian kids, I was told that admission into a top university would determine the entire course of my life. My childhood became an endless cycle of SAT preparation, Advanced Placement classes, extracurricular activities, and constant competition.

The message was simple.

Get into a top university and success would follow.

Fail, and your future would be ruined.

Even today, decades later, thinking about college admissions still raises my blood pressure.

As a father, I now find myself asking a question that my parents never had to consider.

What is the purpose of a university in the age of AI?

The University Was Never Just One Thing

When people think about universities, they usually imagine classrooms, professors, lectures, exams, and diplomas.

But universities have always been several different institutions bundled together.

They conduct research.

They train workers.

They certify credentials.

They provide networking opportunities.

They help young adults develop socially.

For decades, this bundled model worked remarkably well because every one of these functions reinforced the others.

Graduates earned valuable credentials.

Employers trusted those credentials.

Students accepted enormous tuition costs because those credentials led to high paying white collar careers.

The system made economic sense.

At least it used to.

The Cracks Started Before AI

Even before large language models appeared, higher education was already showing signs of stress.

Universities competed for students by building luxury dormitories, massive recreation centers, and professional quality athletic facilities.

Tuition exploded.

Student loan debt exploded.

Education increasingly shifted away from intellectual development and toward vocational training.

Instead of asking students how to think, universities increasingly focused on preparing students for specific careers.

Then AI arrived.

AI Breaks The Educational Model

Artificial intelligence does not simply improve education.

It undermines many of the assumptions that higher education has relied upon for generations.

AI can explain existing knowledge more effectively than many lecturers.

AI can tutor students individually.

AI can write convincing essays.

AI can solve homework assignments.

AI can pass many college examinations.

This creates uncomfortable questions for me.

If AI teaches the lecture, why attend the lecture?

If AI writes the essay, what exactly is the essay measuring?

If AI passes the exam, what does the diploma actually certify?

The college term paper perfectly illustrates this problem.

When I was in school, writing a major paper required weeks of research, organization, revision, and critical thinking.

The paper itself was never the valuable part.

The value came from the thinking required to produce it.

Today, large language models can generate that same final product within minutes.

The artifact still exists.

The learning process does not.

Once that happens, the assignment no longer measures what it was designed to measure.

Universities Were Really Measuring Human Thinking

For generations, universities served as society’s measurement system for cognitive professions.

A degree signaled that someone possessed enough knowledge and reasoning ability to perform complex white collar work.

But AI changes that equation.

Many of the cognitive tasks that universities prepare students to perform are rapidly becoming automated.

If those jobs disappear, then much of the traditional university model loses its economic foundation.

Higher Education Will Fragment

I do not believe universities will disappear.

I believe they will break apart into specialized institutions.

Research institutes may become independent organizations funded by governments, private companies, or nonprofit organizations.

Technical credentialing may shift toward affordable online providers that continuously update practical skills rather than requiring four year degrees.

Communities focused on networking and social development may evolve entirely outside traditional campuses.

Most importantly, I believe a new category of institution will emerge.

Schools whose primary mission is teaching people how to think.

Teaching Humans To Think

This may sound strange at first.

Isn’t that what universities already do?

Increasingly, I do not think so.

When I talk about thinking, I mean reasoning.

Judgment.

Agency.

Taste.

Ethics.

Persuasion.

Understanding human motivations.

Making decisions under uncertainty.

These are the capabilities that remain extraordinarily valuable in an economy increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence.

Future education should not ban AI.

It should teach students how to collaborate with AI while maintaining independent judgment.

Students should learn how to verify evidence.

Challenge AI generated conclusions.

Recognize hallucinations.

Understand the limits of machine intelligence.

AI should become a thinking partner.

Never a thinking replacement.

Assessment would also need to change.

Instead of take home essays generated by language models, students may demonstrate their reasoning through live discussions, debates, collaborative problem solving, and real time decision making.

Perhaps professors themselves evolve into mentors rather than lecturers.

People whose greatest contribution is not transferring information, but sharpening judgment.

Ironically, liberal arts subjects that many universities have spent decades marginalizing, including philosophy, history, mathematics, political theory, and physics, may become some of the most economically valuable disciplines because they teach people how to think instead of simply training them for a specific job.

The University After AI

I am not convinced that artificial intelligence will replace every form of human work.

As long as AI remains a powerful tool rather than true artificial general intelligence, society will still require a relatively small class of professionals capable of solving novel problems, exercising judgment, and making difficult decisions.

Those people will create new companies.

Invent new products.

Lead institutions.

Navigate uncertainty.

The education system that produces those people will look very different from the universities we know today.

It will place wisdom above memorization.

Judgment above credentials.

Thinking above information.

As a father, I hope those institutions exist by the time my son reaches adulthood.

Because I suspect those are the schools that will matter most.

The future belongs not to the people who know the most.

It belongs to the people who can think the best.

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