Hiring? Job-Seeking? Beware Of Artificial Education, Not AI

Employers, job seekers and career changers can no longer broadly, naively nor generously trust university credentialing.

The AI-era whirlwind, soaring tuition blowback, a long-predicted enrollment cliff, staggering administrative bloat and decades of standards dilution imperil higher education, devalue degrees and warrant sharpened stakeholder diligence.

Ironically, overly dramatic ivory-tower pearl clutching about how AI undermines academic integrity, shortcuts learning and subverts curricula reveals, rather than conceals, widespread campus unwillingness, inability and disincentives to adapt or outright abandon industrial-revolution style pedagogy for digital world demands.

Geoffrey Collier’s seminal 2013 editorial, “We Pretend to Teach, They Pretend to Learn,” pinpointed multiple, strong incentives to “maintain low standards” and abdicate “the rigor that the credentials putatively represent.” A decade later, higher ed’s harsh, open secrets even more so long for meaningful exposés, overdue operational audits and independent assessments that will corroborate comfort conveniences’ firm dominance over educational excellence and spur overhaul.

That’s the reality that AI-era recruiters and applicants need to comprehend — before staking precious time, fortune and reputation.

Poseurs palace

Since business schools naturally exemplify institutional challenges in managing the real, underlying tensions inherent in escalated competency-or-credential tradeoffs, here are seven straightforward, minimal time-investment ideas to start the higher ed due diligence that hiring and career advancement choices warrant and deserve.

1. Start with a 2030 vision exercise. Many rising professionals openly question (and later lament) draining post-college savings, bypassing career opportunities and sacrifice personal time for unfulfilling graduate studies. B-schools still reliant on antiquated case studies, coding assignments and whiteboard formula scrawling struggle to convince students how degrees will hold their value in next half-decade.

As discussed over a year ago on Forbes in “MBA Programs Need Generative AI For A Massive Reboot,” [AI’s] “disruption may be more than many b-schools can handle — especially those burdened with antiquated curriculum, outdated delivery models, strained budgets, misaligned incentives, low student satisfaction, administrative bloat and workplace cultures not apt for innovation. From a hiring perspective, employers may soon grow frustrated overpaying for a credential unaccompanied by skills that tomorrow’s competitive edge requires.”

That prescient article questioned how many MBA programs were ready, willing and able to leverage AI to deliver personalized learning, meaningful simulations, novel on-demand virtual teaching tools, augmented experiences and future-proofed skills. As time passes, b-schools fall even further behind AI’s rapid advancement. Campus leaders who consider banning GPTs or obsess about students mindlessly acing cut-and-paste assignments are far better off seriously addressing how “read-memorize-repeat” credentialing masquerades as high-priced education. Graduates’ readiness to succeed as AI-era difference makers urgently hinges on credible plans and action.

2. Ask recent graduates about educational highlights, not coursework. Individuals with high quality learning experiences will quickly and enthusiastically describe meaningful academic components of their studies. Others will stammer mightily to evidence traditional schoolwork’s relevance. Course titles, concentrations and other transcript details are meaningless if the educational experience does not convey indispensable digital era adaptive problem-solving skills.

(Non)answers to a few simple questions, such as follow, can be quite telling. Which courses best enhanced your business acumen? Name three classmates you valued most. Which elective courses were most meaningful? What are the most critical problems companies face in the next decade and how can you help solve them? Can you explain cash flows’ importance? Why is industry insight vital? What is due diligence? What makes a business case convincing? How is AI your co-pilot?

3. Check for news stories about financial distress. Favoring credentialing, relaxing standards and defending overstaffing are often reflexive administrative responses to mounting financial pressures. For instance, the University of Delaware recently disclosed an estimated $20-40 million budget shortfall due to an unanticipated health insurance cost spike. As reported, university president Dennis Assanis responded with “perfect storm, pause button and moment to breathe” clichés, “aggressive” enrollment growth plans and a remote learning push. These quality-dilutive, austerity steps rarely touch top campus executives’ pay (Assanis and chief fundraiser Keith Walter draw over $2.5 million combined annually), tap endowments (such as Delaware’s near $2 billion), but inevitably seek alumni rescue. The consequences ultimately hide in a more costly “race to the bottom” aftermath.

4. Observe classroom experience. The debate over in-person and online education quality is a false binary choice. Exceptional educational experiences, as well “academic anesthesia,” exist in both modalities. Recruiters and admission candidates should visit in-person and virtual classrooms. Wander hallways or request temporary online course access. Assess interaction, student energy and content. Is the institution playing school or business? The differences will be palpable.

At the top, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business prioritizes competencies. Its perennially and universally top-ranked (by U.S. News and World Report, Fortune, Princeton Review and Poets & Quants) online MBA program is also very selective. Now in its 26^th year of distance delivery, IU admits 27% of applicants, expects a decade of work experience and boasts a near-perfect 98% retention rate. Kelley staffs the program exclusively with full-time faculty, broadcasts from the well-funded, state-of-the-art Jellison Studios, delivers individualized job coaching, offers lifetime career services and fosters an intellectual curiosity culture.

Contrast such excellence with the post-pandemic, desperate rise of online credentialing via modern-day correspondence courses rooted in long-outdated curricula, asynchronous narrated PowerPoint lectures and rewards for rote memorization. Many (if not most) online MBA programs self-report porous admission rates over 75%, with some approaching near 100% acceptance.

5. Assess program partnerships and seals of approval. Is executive education contemporary, robust and thriving? Such trailblazing hallmarks the best. As Randy Bean detailed on Forbes, Northeastern University’s novel Institute for Experiential AI has quickly grown to “over 65 staff, 80+ core faculty members, and 30+ affiliate faculty members” and works with industry leaders, including NASA, Sanofi and Verizon to deliver high-level experiential learning, host AI career fairs and “work on AI-driven innovation and transformation problems and solutions.”

Alternatively, other institutions resort to dangerous “metric management” to game rankings and appease accreditors. “Assurance of learning” has morphed into a cottage-industry, expensive, quality control paper drill led by compliance tabulators who, in great conflict of interest, also often manage and dress school rankings data. Senior campus leaders’ treacherous fixation on underlings’ manicured data can fuel strategic blind spots and program obsolescence. Far worse, data malfeasance has sparked administrator scandals, resignations and even federal convictions.

6. Scrub campus websites far beyond landing page sparkle. Replicate a lender’s preliminary due diligence. Do marketing pitches promote speed or substance? Check class schedule sites for actual enrollment numbers. Are electives abundant? Are in-person classes well subscribed? How much face time does each course require? Examine faculty profile pages closely. Do the sites have an antiquated “GeoCities look” or appealing external validation (i.e. intriguing publications, experiential learning, videos, podcasts, company visits and external awards)? Further, non-profits’ Form 990s unmask spending priorities, financial viability and compensation hierarchy. Collectively, these indicators litmus-test espoused veracity.

7. Calculate student-to-staff ratios. Universities eagerly report student-to-faculty ratios as an educational quality proxy. Administrative bloat is a better metric.

According to the Education Data Initiative, while enrollments have declined from a 2010 peak of approximately 21 million students, tuition has since grown at nearly 12% annually. U.S. college costs now hover near $37,000 per year, inclusive of all expenses — with private schools topping $60,000 and some over six figures yearly. Overstaffing and compounded cost mismanagement drives much of that inflation.

A recent Review of Social Economy study found that over the past five decades, U.S. colleges and universities increased full-time faculty by 92% and student enrollment by 78%. Yet, “full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively.” Further, “the proliferation of part-time and adjunct faculty reduced the percentage of full-time faculty from 67% to 54%, while the percentage of full-time administrators increased from 96% to 97%.”

Progressive Policy Institute senior fellow Paul Weinstein, Jr. summarizing, “How to Cut Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges,” wrote, “on average, the top 50 schools have one faculty per eleven students whereas the same institutions have one non-faculty employee per four students. There are now three times as many administrators and other professionals, as there are faculty (on a per student basis).” He added, “This does not include consultants and contractors, many of whom work with university admissions and marketing offices to boost enrollments.”

Outsiders can only wonder what undue and outsized influence such entrenched bureaucratic bloat exerts on student expectations, curriculum and grade inflation.

Overdue diligence

Worthy business degrees qualify recipients to conduct due diligence. Applying such frameworks to AI-era schooling will quickly reveal what’s truly artificial on campus — repackaged, outdated and pricy education. That casts an eerie, imminent future. Or more optimistically, it may be the exact blueprint “stuck in the middle” institutions need. Who’s paying the real price?