The Great Unlearning

Last week, at a dinner for speakers at the Arizona AIA conference, I found myself in the middle of a lively debate. The question that sparked the discussion was simple:

“Do we still need higher education in the age of AI?”

Prompt: Beautiful futuristic vibrant university of the future where non-human intelligence, biological intelligence and group of humans participate in solving the worlds problems.

It’s the kind of question that made me put down the sticky-bun bread service (more on that another time) and really listen. Some at the table said college “forced” them to take classes they wouldn’t have chosen at the time, but that later shaped who they became. Others argued that AI tutors are quickly replacing professors and adapting to each learner’s curiosity, pace, and potential.

I agree with both but also feel like there is something deeper.

The real question isn’t about the need for higher education. The question is our institutions in their current form are still working.

As futurist Peter Diamandis wrote recently, the traditional promise of “Go to college, get a great job” no longer holds up. My recent roles were so close to the ground that it was sobering to see the data from a 50,000ft view:

• Americans calling college “very important” has crashed from 75% to 35% in 15 years.

• Tuition is up 899% since 1983, saddling 42 million borrowers with $1.8 trillion in debt.

• College graduates now make up one-third of the long-term unemployed, up from one-fifth a decade ago.

• Job postings requiring degrees have dropped 6% since 2019.

In other words, we’re paying a quarter million dollars for a piece of paper that no longer guarantees anything. The key that once opened doors is now locking people out. Higher education isn’t failing because the brand stopped working. It’s failing because the world started learning faster than the universities did. By the time a student graduates, what they learned freshman year is already obsolete.

AI tutors, by contrast, are learning 24/7 across disciplines and languages. Programs like Khanmigo, built by Khan Academy are using AI-assisted learning and showing students learning 5–10 times faster than in traditional classrooms. Let's be clear, faster doesn’t mean better. The last 10 years that glorified the myth of efficiency are showing us that every day.

AI can teach you calculus if you want it to, but it can’t teach you compassion. It can't force you to take a class you don't want to...or can it? Should it?

Education is as much about formation as it is about information. It’s about becoming an adult, finding your people, and learning to learn. It’s about curiosity, care, and the courage to think for yourself. That’s what we forget when we reduce education to content delivery.

The future of learning must weave humanity and technology together as collaborators over competitors. The next models must be interdisciplinary, experiential, and relational. Art should play with engineering. Philosophy should dance with code. Learning should happen in communities, not silos.

Diamandis calls this “the new credential economy,” where value is proven. I’ve noticed that some of my best friends, colleagues and team mates are masters of a portfolio career. I'm a fan a world where the most employable people are those who can show not tell their value.

My friend Byron Auguste, founder of Opportunity@Work, has spent years advocating for this shift. His “Tear the Paper Ceiling” campaign challenges the outdated notion that a four-year degree is the only path to a good job. His work champions STARs (Skilled Through Alternative Routes), people who’ve built expertise through experience. There are 70 million of them in the U.S. alone. STARs are real innovators, builders, coders, and creators who didn’t wait for permission to learn.

And then there’s my friend Vincent Bragg, founder of ConCreates, a creative agency powered by currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. They call themselves “Ideation Nation.” They prove, every day, that creativity, intelligence, and strategy flourish in the margins.

These are the models of education that continually inspire me. Always, decentralized, generative and profoundly Human.

Across the globe, new learning experiments are emerging that hint at what comes next.

• Minerva University is reimagining higher education with a global, fully active learning model where students move through cities instead of semesters.

• Cogniti is a University of Syndey project that allows professors to create their own agents tailored to their curriculum.

• My former endeavor at Parallax Futures explored how conceptual thinking and AI could create new products and projects.

These are the new living laboratories of learning. It's what I'd like to call wider education. Education that is designed by cultivating network of curiosity that moves with relevance over speed.

It’s time to look at this seriously. The university model is dead. But I think we need a human intervention along with the AI revolution in pedagogy. We need to build digital and physical spaces where imagination meets intelligence, and where learners design their own paths in collaboration with AI companions, mentors, and communities.

We need to learn beyond the institution and to liberate education from its historical obsolescence. Because the real question isn’t “Should kids still go to college?”It’s “How do we build a world where learning never ends and never begins with debt?”

We’re all needed to answer this. We need help from the educators, the creators, the question-askers, the rebels, and the dreamers. It’s time to imagine something more whole, more fluid, that amplifies what makes us human.