Over the years, I have written a couple of pieces explicitly about higher education. As with many elements of our daily lives, things have gotten weird. And when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. So let me say: We have hit peak degree. Lets start with the background and then play a game of Consequences.
In living memory, a university education has gone from being a luxury for a tiny minority to both an entry ticket into middle class life and a badge validating your place in that life. 43% of Australians aged 25-34 have a degree. Education is Australia’s third biggest export after coal and iron ore and its universities employ over a quarter of a million people. Degrees are big business. [Source]
Who pays for this $40bn industry? Looking at all university income:
A third comes from government grants (tax payers).
A quarter comes from overseas students.
A sixth comes from government-underwritten student debt.
University graduates tend to vote for left of center parties. While nearly all right wing politicians are university educated, they increasingly see universities are ideological enemies rather than neutral civic institutions. Some of the more florid examples of left-wing ideology in universities has given their opponents easy ammunition.
For the 20th century, automation technologies were focused on manufacturing while computers enabled white collar work and created new professions (programmers, business analysts, web developers, social media managers, etc). In short, technology favoured people with degrees.
Universities have grown in an environment where technological, economic and social change effectively sold their product for them domestically and where reduced international regulation opened up new markets of those hungry for their product. As much as they are positioned as dens of Marxism, modern universities are quintessentially neoliberal institutions that thrived in a neoliberal world. We left that world some time ago but sometimes reactions are delayed.
So what happened?
A victim of their own success. Degrees used to be rare. Now they are common (and getting more so). While many degrees have intrinsic value, the blanket status value of a degree has declined over time. While this has led to an education arms race (e.g. people getting a Masters degree to gain an edge with those over a Batchelors), this arms race has proved to be unsustainable.
Immigration has become a hot button issue in Western societies. A major immigrant channel is education (universities are the original people smugglers). So governments can score easy political wins by reducing student visas, which is a problem if your finances are built on them.
Meanwhile right-wing governments can bolster their standing with their anti-university constituents by attacking their perceived ideological enemies.
Technology is now coming for the jobs of white collar, college degree workers. Not only that but LLMs undermine many of the traditional assessment approaches of higher education. In the predator-prey arms race between teachers and cheats, ChatGPT is as disruptive as cheap drones are to the real world battlefield.
So what does this mean?
Some professions will remain degree-based - e.g. Medicine, Law, probably Engineering. But many professions do not require a degree. They require an initial short-course knowledge base and then periodic upgrades of continuous professional development. The degree will be replaced by the Microcredential swarm.
Employers will no longer require a degree as a gatekeeping credential for many roles.
A significant number of universities will either go bust or radically downsize their operations. Savvy employers will be able to pick up smart people cheap.
Universities will get dragged further into the Culture Wars - esp. in the USA where these Wars are more intense. Ideological entrepreneurs of many stripes may seek to take over institutions on the edge of collapse.
AI and LLMs will need to be incorporated into pedagogy at break neck speed. Unfakeable demonstrations of ability will be preferred. Handwritten exams will make a come back.
[EDIT] Skilled manual labour (the trades) will return to middle class respectability given their resistance to easy automation, decent salaries, and affordable training. The VET sector will need to respond in kind. Vocational institutions may rescue academic ones.
Tell me where I am wrong.
There's another element here is the feminization of degrees where the majority now go to women and, therefore, the universities have begun catering to that with the explosion of soft degree whereas graduation rates for STEM remain quite consistent. In fact, STEM has retained their value, by and large, whereas all other programs have fallen victim to what you've described.
I asked ChatGPT to critique this piece:
Strengths of the piece
Timeliness and relevance:
The article identifies a very real set of pressures on higher education: declining degree prestige, demographic and political shifts, reliance on international student income, and the disruptive role of AI. These are widely recognized dynamics, and the author synthesizes them in a clear, engaging narrative.
Clear framing device:
The “peak degree” metaphor is powerful — it’s memorable, it frames higher education like a commodity bubble, and it helps the reader grasp the argument quickly.
Integration of multiple lenses:
The article moves fluidly between economic (funding models), political (culture wars, immigration), and technological (AI/automation) forces. This interdisciplinary perspective makes the analysis richer than a purely economic or political critique.
Conversational style:
The informal, slightly provocative tone (“universities are the original people smugglers”; “the weird turn pro”) makes the piece punchy and accessible, even if it risks alienating some readers.
Weaknesses and blind spots
Overgeneralization:
Treats “universities” as a monolithic block, when in reality there’s huge stratification (elite vs regional vs vocational).
Treats “degrees” as interchangeable, but the dynamics differ vastly between, say, a Bachelor of Arts and a nursing qualification.
Political dynamics oversimplified:
It suggests universities are simply “ideological enemies” of the right. That misses the pragmatic side: in many countries, conservative governments still fund and rely on higher education for research, regional development, and global competitiveness.
The piece doesn’t fully consider that employers themselves (even conservative-leaning corporations) continue to demand degrees, often as a risk-management shortcut.
Tech determinism:
The claim that LLMs and AI will broadly replace the need for degrees and assessment methods is too linear. Educational technology history shows that disruption is uneven: institutions adapt more slowly but do adapt. AI may reduce cheating in one area while increasing the importance of human validation and ethics training.
Neglect of credential politics:
Degrees aren’t just about skills — they’re about status and signaling. Even if microcredentials and CPD are more practical, degrees carry cultural cachet. Employers may still prefer them because they represent perseverance, socialization, and conformity to institutional norms. That inertia is underplayed.
Weak evidence base:
The article cites one stat (43% of Australians aged 25–34 with a degree) and a single revenue number ($40bn), but otherwise relies on anecdotal observations. Without more comparative data (decline in international student numbers, actual employer hiring trends, etc.), the piece risks being more of a polemic than an analysis.
Areas for refinement / counterarguments
“Peak degree” may not mean collapse:
The piece frames the future as one of collapse, but higher education may instead plateau or diversify. Some institutions will shrink, but others may grow by offering hybrid models (microcredentials within degrees, employer partnerships, stackable learning).
Immigration framing:
Calling universities “people smugglers” is provocative but glib — it overlooks the fact that international students are an essential labor and demographic strategy for aging economies like Australia’s. Governments may attack student visas rhetorically, but in practice, they often re-open them quickly because of workforce shortages.
Employer incentives:
The article assumes employers will embrace microcredentials, but employers are risk-averse. Degrees are a blunt but efficient filtering tool; abandoning them requires institutional reform of HR practices — which historically changes very slowly.
Culture wars dynamic:
While it’s true that U.S. universities are battlegrounds, in other countries (including Australia) this dynamic is less acute. The article risks universalizing an American trend.
AI disruption:
The “handwritten exams will make a comeback” claim is clever, but probably overstates the regression. More likely, universities will blend AI literacy into teaching and assessment — with oral defenses, applied projects, or collaborative assignments — rather than simply returning to pen-and-paper.
Bottom line critique
The piece is a sharp, provocative take that captures real vulnerabilities in higher education. But it leans heavily on broad generalizations, tech determinism, and rhetorical flourish, while underplaying the resilience of universities as entrenched institutions with deep political and cultural capital. Rather than “peak degree” as a moment of collapse, the future is more likely one of slower evolution, uneven disruption, and stratification — with elite universities remaining powerful, vocational institutions adapting, and middle-tier universities under pressure.