With AI rapidly transforming sectors, Gen Z increasingly recognizes that even a top-tier degree may not be the ultimate key doesn't guarantee success. This is evident in the unemployment rate is ticking up seen among recent graduates.
TL;DR
- Udemy CEO Hugo Sarrazin believes degrees and skills must coexist for lifelong learning.
- Gen Z questions higher education's sole value as AI transforms the job market.
- Adaptive skills like judgment and curiosity are crucial for success in the AI era.
- While degrees offer a foundation, continuous skill development is essential for relevance.
This situation has reawakened the persistent debate involving pursuing a degree and a singular focus on vocational instruction. However, Udemy CEO Hugo Sarrazin asserts that these two aspects are not mutually exclusive.
“It’s cohabitation. I think you start with a degree, there’s a foundation that comes with a degree, but you need the skills to be relevant in the workplace,” he said.
Sarrazin added that it’s “silly to think” that the education someone gets in their early twenties will set them up for life. Instead, lifelong learning must become the norm.
“We need to move to a world where there’s ongoing, continuous evolution of the skills portfolio that one has to be adapted to the jobs that they want in the market that they’re in,” he added.
Although Sarrazin's remarks aren't unexpected considering he heads a company valued at almost $1 billion that concentrates on skills development, he maintains he wouldn't reject university if he were a student now.
After all, he has three degrees to his name—including two from Stanford—and no regrets. University, he said, taught him something that will never go out of style: “how to think.”
AI world success skills
As technology continues to evolve, so do the skills needed to stay relevant. According to Sarrazin, adaptive skills have become some of the most critical—and underappreciated—traits in the workplace.
Udemy’s 2026 Global Learning & Skills Trends Report highlights qualities such as judgment, curiosity, flexibility, and risk tolerance as key to thriving in the AI era.
“Skills development for AI readiness requires not just upskilling on the technical level or determining how to use it fluidly, in everyday use cases,” the report said. “It requires the ability to ask the right questions, to know when to rely on AI (and when to press pause), and to foresee impacts beyond the immediate.”
LinkedIn's internal data echoes indicates that sentiment, highlighting AI literacy, conflict resolution, flexibility, workflow enhancement, and creative ideation as the most rapidly expanding competencies professionals ought to develop to advance.
Degrees are still valuable
Despite this, the worth of tertiary education stays considerable, particularly over extended periods. A typical bachelor's degree yields a 682% return on investment throughout a lifetime, as reported by Education Data Initiative.
It can take time to realize that return—on average, about 11 years in the workforce to recoup the cost of a bachelor’s degree—but the long-term payoff is significant, opening doors to career advancement and higher earnings.
Still, Sarrazin emphasizes that having the diploma alone isn’t enough to guarantee success. What matters most is the ability to apply foundational knowledge to future challenges.
“[University] is a launching pad,” he said. “…Then, after that, we need to say, what do we do to prepare people to work and be successful? And I think skills become really, really, really important.”