If your child starts college today, will the career they’re preparing for still exist when they graduate?

As a parent, that’s a question I find myself thinking about more and more.

The career formula is changing

For generations, the formula was pretty simple: go to college, choose a good major, develop a marketable skill, graduate, and build a career.

AI is beginning to break that formula.

Look at computer programming. AI can already write code, debug programs, and accomplish work that previously required significant human time. That doesn’t mean programmers are disappearing. It means something potentially more disruptive: we may need far fewer of them.

Programming won’t be the only profession affected. Accounting, financial analysis, legal research, marketing, graphic design, customer service, data analysis, insurance, engineering, and even parts of medicine could require fewer people as AI makes each worker dramatically more productive.

What happens if your child starts a four-year degree in a profession that employs 500,000 people today—but only needs 250,000 by the time they graduate?

They could do everything “right” and still enter a completely different job market than the one they prepared for.

A portfolio of durable skills

Colleges need to adapt to this reality—and quickly. Maybe the future of higher education shouldn’t be centered entirely around choosing a degree that prepares someone for one specific career.

What if graduates left school with a portfolio of highly desirable skills that can be applied across many careers and industries?

  • Critical thinking and problem solving
  • Communication and leadership
  • Financial literacy
  • Sales and persuasion
  • Data analysis and technology
  • Entrepreneurship
  • The ability to use AI effectively

Those skills aren’t tied to one job description. They’re transferable. In a world where technology may fundamentally change entire professions every few years, adaptability itself may become one of the most valuable skills a college can teach.

A better question for the next generation

Maybe we’re asking our kids the wrong question. Instead of asking, “What degree will get you a good job?” perhaps we should ask, “What combination of skills will allow you to remain valuable no matter how the job market changes?”

Careers involving human relationships, judgment, leadership, accountability, and physical skills may prove more resilient: healthcare, skilled trades, relationship-driven sales, entrepreneurship, leadership roles, and jobs that require people to operate in unpredictable real-world environments.

But maybe the safest career isn’t one AI can’t replace. Maybe it’s one where AI makes you dramatically better at what you do.

Look beyond the degree

Parents—and colleges—need to start looking beyond the degree.

  • Teach kids how to think and communicate.
  • Teach them how to sell and how businesses make money.
  • Teach them how to solve difficult problems and work with people.
  • Teach them how to use AI.

The biggest career risk for the next generation may not be AI taking their job. It may be someone who knows how to use AI taking the job from someone who doesn’t.

If your child were starting college today, would you rather see them graduate with a specialized degree—or a broader combination of highly marketable skills that gives them the ability to adapt throughout their career?