Let’s stop pretending that a college degree guarantees employability.
The data’s now undeniable: recent college grads are entering one of the weakest job markets in decades. We’re witnessing a transformation of the entry-level job market. The rote, grind-it-out work that used to train and test young talent—drafting memos, summarizing research, pulling together strategy slides—is increasingly automated. Generative AI doesn’t sleep, doesn’t negotiate salary, and doesn’t need onboarding. If we continue preparing students for jobs that machines now do better, we’re setting them up to be replaced.
But here’s the good news: the jobs of the future—those that matter, that endure, that drive value—will depend on something AI can’t replicate: the ability to think beyond the obvious.
That’s where Original Intelligence comes in.
Original Intelligence is the ability to create something new – expand the idea space beyond what is currently known. The structure and operation of Generative AI tends towards sameness. What might appear original to a single observer may in fact be the same answer available to many at the same time. This is the largest challenge in the AI transformation of our society – overreliance on a tool that is the most efficient knowledge diffusion technology ever invented.
Any business school professor will tell you that there two ways to make money in this world – be more efficient than your competitors or provide something that others cannot. AI’s efficiency will ultimately make knowledge a commodity. This leads to the inevitable conclusion: Original Intellgence is the value add in an AI-driven society.
We see in the classroom that students are more and more often using AI tools in their daily studies. Many in education appear to believe that AI is a “cheating problem” and that rooting out the separation between human and AI-derived answers is the solution. They are chasing the wrong issue – the question should not be “what is human and what is AI” but rather how are students using AI to be original thinkers. They must use AI as a tool, like a calculator, rather than as a crutch.
This is a wake-up call to university presidents, provosts, deans, and curriculum architects: we are at a strategic inflection point. The value proposition of higher education cannot continue to be “we prepare students for jobs”—not if those jobs are increasingly mechanized, templated, or disappearing altogether. If we merely teach our students to be knowledge retrievers and reciters, we will send them on a path where they will not win – they will never be as efficient or as comprehensive as AI. Nor should we assume that we can
“future proof” our students by giving them technical or job-ready skills. In a world of constant progression and change driven by AI we would be providing a false sense of security in a world where tools evolve faster than course catalogs.
The key is to educate students on a contextual basis the cornucopia of knowledge they will gain from AI. Give them to tools to discern facts from fiction, build associations from facts and develop unique insights. It may be that Liberal Arts – the development of contextual understanding and critical thinking skills are what education should be stressing after all.
However, this is not Liberal Arts for the 1400s or the early 2000s. Education must become something new. Embedding Original Intelligence in curriculum isn’t just a pedagogical update—it’s a full institutional reframe. It means teaching students to ask better questions, not just deliver faster answers. It means creating learning environments that reward intellectual risk-taking, synthesis across disciplines, and counter-narrative thinking.
And it means developing new ways to assess what matters. GPAs and standardized test scores can’t capture how a student expands the idea space. We need metrics that reflect originality, insight, and strategic thinking—because that’s what the economy will reward.
The truth is that the future won’t belong to those who know more. It will belong to those who think differently.
Jonathan Aberman is the co-founder and CEO of Hupside. He was formerly the founding Dean of the College of Business, Innovation, Leadership and Technology at Marymount University.
