By Futurist Thomas Frey
College degrees are dying. Not because education doesn’t matter, but because the credential itself—a piece of paper certifying you sat in classrooms for four years—has become nearly worthless as a signal of actual capability.
Employers know this. Students drowning in debt know this. The only people pretending otherwise are universities protecting a $600 billion industry built on credentialing monopoly.
By 2040, degrees will be what they were in 1900—nice but optional. What replaces them is far more interesting: a constellation of new credentialing systems that actually prove you can do what you claim.
The big shift moves the center of gravity from “college = gatekeeper of opportunity” to “AI = validator of competence.”
Here’s what that actually looks like.
Continue reading… “What Replaces College Degrees? The Future of Credentials by 2040”