By Lea Abito | Staff Writer
After four years of dreaded 8 a.m. classes and stressful all-nighters, you walk across the stage expecting the doors to your future to fully open. Instead, you get handed a piece of paper. And in four more years, it’ll likely be hanging on a wall gathering dust.
The value of traditional degrees are fading, as they are no longer the default pathway to success. It forces us to question the relevance of that paper before we even earn it.
At Florida International University, there are over 290 degree programs, with more regularly added.
FIU introduced new bachelor’s degrees in data science and artificial intelligence in 2024 and in May, the Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media launched a new master’s in animation and game development.
Across the nation, the computer and information sciences and support services field is also growing. The National Center for Education Statistics reported it doubled from 47,400 degrees to 108,500 between 2011-12 and 2021-22.
It is understandable that more technology-related degrees are being created and awarded, given the increasing societal shift towards A.I. and digital systems. But a degree in A.I. only makes sense until you realize A.I. can do it for you.
Already, 7 in 10 Americans believe higher education is going in the wrong direction. This is up 56% from a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, around the time A.I. skyrocketed in the public sphere.
And in 2025, only 35% of 18-35-year-olds cited college as “very important,” compared to 75% in 2010.
But A.I. is not the only culprit behind the decline.
Employers are no longer as seduced by the fancy calligraphy on a diploma. Instead, they want experience. And experience can be developed miles away from a college campus.
My brother, Jean-Luc Abito, a computer science graduate from Palm Beach Atlantic University, recently applied for a game developer position at Roblox. Already overqualified, and not because of college, he did not sit in a Zoom meeting having his resume and educational history analyzed word for word.
Instead, the interviewers asked for a display of his skills. Where he went to college and what he graduated with hardly mattered because careers are increasingly becoming skill-based.
“Learn a skill and make money from it,” is what my cousin, Dje Kouadio, likes to say.
He was studying marketing at Palm Beach Atlantic University before he pivoted away from college, finding that learning about marketing was not the same as actually doing it.
And in today’s world, you can do just about anything.
Without a formal degree, he successfully markets clothing and e-commerce brands and Roblox games. Marketing, like other creative fields, does not require a knowledge-based formal education. If you can learn and apply the skill, you are set. You’ve saved yourself four years of waiting for a degree.
There are also many different pathways to success nowadays, with passive income and investing growing in popularity, especially among young men.
About 56% of Gen Z in the U.S. own some investments, with cryptocurrency among the most popular. Investing and crypto do not require degrees, but you can succeed in all the same, perhaps even more than with the slow, sometimes uncertain payoff of a college education.
Degrees, like newspapers and paper money, are becoming old news as society evolves away from traditionality.
But that isn’t to say college and degrees will become completely obsolete. As an institute, college isn’t going anywhere.
It may just need to evolve too.
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The opinions presented on this page do not represent the views of the PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect the perspectives of contributing writers and/or university community members.
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