The education portfolio: what to teach your child after the AI revolution and the changing role of the diploma

For decades, a high school diploma was the main and often the only asset for a child's future. Parents invested resources in it, expecting the "crust" to be the finish line and a guarantee of stability. This model is changing. It's not about the "death of the diploma," but a radical transformation of its role. Vadim Novikov, Advisor to the President of Almaty Management University (AlmaU), discusses how parents should plan their children's education.

Artificial intelligence has set the job market in motion, challenging the existence of many established professions. As Matt Garman, head of Amazon's cloud division (AWS), recently noted in an interview with CNBC , in the AI era, it is not knowledge of a particular technology that is valued, but the ability to think critically and learn quickly.

Employers are shifting massively from credential-based hiring to skills-based hiring, the so-called skills-based hiring. This shift is a direct consequence of accelerating times: the WEFFuture of Occupations 2025report predicts that by 2030, 39% of key employee skills will change and 59% of employees will need retraining. This is explained not only by the proliferation of AI, but also by trends like decarbonization and an aging population.

If the old model in which a diploma equaled success no longer works, how do you properly invest in education to ensure your child's success in the next decade when he or she enters the job market?

The most reliable strategy is to view education as a diversified portfolio of skills, where a diploma is not the only, though fundamental asset. It is the starting point on which the whole further trajectory of metacognition, creativity, "human" qualities and AI-literacy is built.

The value of a degree has historically been built on the exclusive access to knowledge that a university provided. Today, this very model of paid content ("knowledge"), which is not only characteristic of universities, is under attack, and financial markets are already delivering their verdict.

AI is undermining business models across the spectrum, from respectable textbook publishers to helper services.

Thus, the IPO of publishing giant McGraw Hill was unsuccessful - the company managed to place shares at a price below the price corridor, its total valuation at the IPO was lower than in previous private transactions.

Shares of Chegg, whose core business is selling off-the-shelf solutions to students, have collapsed 50% in a year.

Each such case has its individual reasons, but behind them we can see a trend - businesses based on selling content can't easily compete with free neural networks.

At the same time, employers - including Tesla, Google, Netflix and Apple - are dropping the degree as a formal requirement. As recently as last year, Intelligent.com, a platform specializing in education consulting, published a survey of 750 U.S. business leaders, which showed that 33% of companies have dropped the requirement to have a bachelor's degree for some job openings, while 25% reported plans to do so this year.

The trend is so strong that it has affected even conservative spheres: some US states (Pennsylvania and Utah among them) have removed the requirement of higher education for civil servants.

Of course, employers have always valued experience, but there has also always been a demand for young staff. The balance between the two is fluid, but now the importance of experience is growing.

This is especially evident in the tech industry, where the cult of youth has reigned for decades. Consulting firm Korn Ferry, in an article with the telling title "Tech Industry's New Friend - Boomers," says that hiring of employees with more than 10 years of experience increased by 27% from 2023 to 2024, while hiring of employees with five to ten years of experience jumped by an impressive 40%. At the same time, hiring of college graduates dropped by 25%. This reversal shows that employers are increasingly relying on proven experience rather than potential.

Conclusion: betting only on a "diploma" is a risky investment. But this does not mean that the university is not needed. It means that its value now lies elsewhere.

In a world where knowledge is literally available "at the click of a button," true capital becomes assets that cannot be "downloaded."

And this is where a good university, strangely enough, proves to be beyond competition.

The above-mentioned World Economic Forum report "The Future of Occupations 2025" provides a picture of these new skills in demand.

- From knowledge to wisdom

There's a fundamental shift happening right now, well described by Silicon Valley coach Joe Hudson: from the value of knowledge ("what do I know?") to the value of wisdom - the ability to make good decisions based on experience and emotional clarity. This wisdom cannot be downloaded from an online course. It is born only in active action and reflection.

A modern university, with an appropriate approach, can be an ideal environment for such experience. Through such formats as project-based learning or socially-oriented learning (service learning), students do not just acquire knowledge. They face real-life challenges, learn to work in teams, make mistakes and, most importantly, process them into experience - the very wisdom that cannot be copied.

In fact, it is a reflection of a global shift in education itself: from a focus on pure technology (STEM) to more holistic approaches that include the arts (STEAM) and liberal arts reading, writing, and research (STREAM), combining a focus on technology with creativity and critical thinking.

- "Human" qualities: the power of community

Leadership, empathy, ability to work in a team - these skills are developed only in society. University is a unique platform for their growth. According to the WEF report, employers consider analytical thinking (70%) the most important skill, but right behind it are resilience, flexibility and adaptability (67%) and leadership and social influence (61%). These qualities are shaped through collaborative projects, student organizations and networking - all of which are at the heart of university life.

- Groundedness is a reliable "certification"

Unlike short online courses, the university offers not only a more demanding system for testing knowledge, but also an environment that helps you bring your learning to completion.

The contrast is stark: while the completion rate for massively online courses is only 5-10%, for bachelor's degree programs the rate is around 60%.

Yes, knowledge can be "downloaded in one click", but it is the structure, social environment and commitments of university life that turn the intention to learn into a real result. In this sense, a diploma from a good university is a signal not only of knowledge, but also of a person's ability to work in a long, systematic way.

These seemingly abstract requirements - wisdom, humanity, thoroughness - are already being embodied in concrete educational models.

For example, technology giant Google years ago launched a "Search Inside Yourself" program for its engineers to develop mindfulness and emotional intelligence.

At AlmaU, where I work, this international trend is connected to the local context. The university has a mandatory program for all students called "Tolyk Adam" ("Integral Man"). It is based on the philosophy of Kazakh poet and thinker Abay about the unity of "heart, mind and will", and among the mandatory disciplines are not only critical thinking, but also "service learning" and "great books". This approach aims to create not just a specialist with knowledge, but a holistic individual with experience and empathy - the very assets that constitute the new currency of the labor market.

So what should parents do to ensure that their child can become marketable in the labor market?

The role of a parent and a student now is to become a portfolio manager of their education. And the role of a modern university is to be the main partner and architect of this portfolio.

- The university is becoming a hub for lifelong learning. The model of "Four years in higher education and that's it" is dead. Leading universities are becoming lifelong learning centers. The example of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with its MIT Learn platform shows that the university opens its knowledge to everyone and accompanies graduates throughout their careers. This is the role that modern universities can and should play by offering programs for adults.

- A university degree is a base, and microqualifications are a flexible way to build marketable skills on it.

How much students value this approach is shown by a recent Coursera report: the attractiveness of a university program to an applicant soars from a baseline 36% to 77% when marketplace certificates are embedded in it. When the certificates count as academic "credits," the program's attractiveness peaks at 88%.

This demand is confirmed by another indicator: 94% of students want their microqualifications to count towards their diploma. For universities, this is an unambiguous signal: the future is not in opposing diplomas and certificates, but in smartly synthesizing them.

At first glance, calls for the development of wisdom and integrity may seem like a return to the abstract ideals of the past. This is partly true: classical universities like Oxford have always aimed at developing the whole person, not just the specialist.

Today, however, this turn toward "humanitarian values" is not motivated by nostalgia, but by cold economic pragmatics. In a world where artificial intelligence has made "concrete" knowledge a universally available and essentially free commodity, the real currency is what cannot be copied: human judgment, character, and capacity for growth.

This is also changing the investment in education - people are no longer passive purchasers of a single asset ('diploma'), they become active managers of a 'skills portfolio'.

A successful strategy is built on a solid foundation - the choice of a university environment that provides not just knowledge, but wisdom and experience. This basic asset needs to be flexibly supplemented with "growth tools" - marketable micro-skills that allow for rapid growth of in-demand skills.

And like any good investor, the parent and student must be prepared to constantly rebalance that portfolio, a lifetime of learning new things and bravely abandoning outdated competencies.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor