The landscape of higher education is rapidly changing. Fewer young people think that the traditional four-year bachelor’s degree is a good use of their time and money; there are other ways of getting the training they need for productive careers. Moreover, the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution may eliminate lots of jobs that college grads used to expect. So, what does the future of college education look like?

In today’s Martin Center article, David Randall of NAS ponders that question. He suggests that colleges and universities might think about going back to something they used to do, the shaping of souls.

He writes:

If higher education is to survive — if liberal education is to survive — it must prove that it can provide preparation for a superior governance than AI can achieve. It must be able to educate college graduates whose conversations provide better ends for the republic than do the text recombinations of AI, and whose prudential judgment is superior to that of an AI algorithm.

College leaders, Randall argues, ought to concentrate on inculcating virtues such as self-reliance, honesty, and humility.

He continues:

The university’s practical men have, for centuries, scanted or scoffed at this sort of moralizing program—antiquated, behind the times, beside the point. But the AI revolution threatens to end the funding for “practical” higher education—save, perhaps, for the trade schools necessary to train wire-dusters for the AI server banks. Practical-minded leaders of colleges and universities may discover that the best bet for their institutions’ survival is to reorient them around the academic virtues, as an education for the civic virtues needed to govern our republic.

If he’s right, our higher education system is in for a lot of creative destruction.