LinkedIn CEO says ‘future of work doesn’t belong to people with Degrees’

[Anonymous]

More bad news for GenZ

https://fortune.com/2025/10/02/gen-z-graduates-linkedin-ceo-college-degrees-future-of-work-ai-skills-hiring-career-advice/

There is some truth to it.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure the future of work looks so great for people without degrees, either. In turn, the future of LinkedIn is pretty bleak, too.

[Anonymous]

The majority of Americans don't have college degrees so there's truth in that

[Anonymous]

The article of course references successful dropouts who all attended the top schools for the most part.

The top schools are still the ones most successful in attracting the very students the article claims are in highest demand. It’s probably why those kids are most comfortable taking a leave to found a startup (which these schools make it easy to do)…even if they don’t return.

[Anonymous]

Eh. Everyone knows that no college degree is a guarantee of anything. But only 0.0001% of us are on a path to become tech billionaires or CEOs. For the rest of us, a degree from a strong college and the discipline and the network that comes from that, is a much better path to a middle class life than working at McD's after high school.

[Anonymous]

There is no question that we have to reassess the purpose of college. But I can’t help but think that the sudden anti-higher education sentiment is part of a bigger agenda by the people in power to try to convince poor/middle class/UMC to skip college. Are the elites going to stop sending their kids to college?

[Anonymous]

What a douche

[Anonymous]

Now look at job postings to work at LinkedIn...yeah they want degrees

[Anonymous]

Why do you pay attention to this nonsense? You need a degree to even do basic work now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The article of course references successful dropouts who all attended the top schools for the most part.

The top schools are still the ones most successful in attracting the very students the article claims are in highest demand. It’s probably why those kids are most comfortable taking a leave to found a startup (which these schools make it easy to do)…even if they don’t return.

bingo. undergrad pedigree will matter more than ever, not less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no question that we have to reassess the purpose of college. But I can’t help but think that the sudden anti-higher education sentiment is part of a bigger agenda by the people in power to try to convince poor/middle class/UMC to skip college. Are the elites going to stop sending their kids to college?

Yup. This is it. A less educated populace makes it easier to exploit workers and consolidate power. Inequality is the goal. So insidious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no question that we have to reassess the purpose of college. But I can’t help but think that the sudden anti-higher education sentiment is part of a bigger agenda by the people in power to try to convince poor/middle class/UMC to skip college. Are the elites going to stop sending their kids to college?

Yes my concern has been the same, for about 3 to 4 years people posting about Oh just get a trade, and sure enough where did they go, and where do they try to send their kids? Princeton, Penn, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Duke. It is mostly a ploy. Frankly, some of it seems quite racist. What is sad is it works. My job serves a lot of low-income hispanic second generation immigrants(southern border state), and the advice they get is terrible. More and more bright high schoolers fall for the "get the associates with DE" when they could have gone to a 4 year college with better outcomes, and for dirt cheap or free due to income.

[Anonymous]

I think there's always been some tension with degrees that aren't from the top schools.
If you graduate with an English degree from a small, not well known school, what are your options with that degree? Teaching may be one, if you can get the teaching certificate. You may luck into something that uses your degree. But you may also end up doing something like real estate, that you could have done without the degree. And if you've paid a ton for the degree and have debt, that may feel like a bad deal. With the labor market contracting, I do think the options for people are going to contract. And with AI replacing some of what was previously considered "good" degrees regardless of the school (like computer science, basic programmers or IT support), it becomes even more challenging.
I don't know what the answer is, other than that we probably need fewer people in the labor market, but that is going to be a rough adjustment that no one seems prepared to make.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is no question that we have to reassess the purpose of college. But I can’t help but think that the sudden anti-higher education sentiment is part of a bigger agenda by the people in power to try to convince poor/middle class/UMC to skip college. Are the elites going to stop sending their kids to college?

My husband came from a poor family and his half siblings actively mocked him when he went to college. The anti education sentiment is extremely strong in rural and poorer communities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The article of course references successful dropouts who all attended the top schools for the most part.

The top schools are still the ones most successful in attracting the very students the article claims are in highest demand. It’s probably why those kids are most comfortable taking a leave to found a startup (which these schools make it easy to do)…even if they don’t return.

bingo. undergrad pedigree will matter more than ever, not less.

Maybe…it’s not that its the pedigree that matters vs the kinds of kids the school attracts.

Probably 50%+ of MIT or Stanford or even Columbia’s CS students have been coding for 10+ years and are AI-native in how they develop.

So, in theory if you want to hire the kids with the skills described in the article, you will find a higher hit rate.

However, the same companies won’t ignore a kid from San Jose State that also has those skills and they probably fund programs at SJSU to create the grads they want.