The Uneven Payoff of Returning to College - Joshua Bay, Inside Higher Ed

A new report from California Competes, part of its ongoing Degrees of Value research series, examines the return on investment of a college degree among adults who previously stopped out and later graduated. Drawing on interviews with 27 California adult learners who left college and later returned, researchers explored the financial, personal and social benefits of completing a degree, as well as the costs associated with returning to college. Participants were first interviewed in 2023 and again in 2025. About half of the graduates interviewed saw their earnings increase within three years of completing their degrees, particularly those who returned with clear career goals. One graduate went from earning $10 an hour as a cleaner at a nursing facility to more than $100,000 annually as a nurse. But graduates in rural communities described more limited financial gains because of fewer local job opportunities.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/life-after-college/2026/10/09/uneven-payoff-returning-college

What’s the value of a university education? - Mariianne Mays Wiebe, University of Manitoba Today

What is the role of the university in the face of the major societal shift represented by artificial intelligence? Universities should continue to “embrace our role as institutions where students learn how to think, not what to think,” says Hiebert-Murphy. A university education, she suggests, “offers a learning environment in which students develop the skills to think critically, engage deeply with challenging issues, evaluate information, generate creative solutions to complex problems and work collaboratively with others towards shared goals.” Engaging with diverse mentors and learners also develops leadership skills and exposes students to different perspectives. “These have been, and continue to be, essential skills for participating in society and contributing to its social, economic, intellectual, environmental, physical and cultural well-being,” she says.

https://umtoday.ca/stories/whats-value-university-education

AI Is Changing Jobs, Not Eliminating Them - Peter Cappelli, Knowledge at Wharton

Agentic AI changes three fundamental constraints that have shaped the modern organization: human capacity, expertise, and coordination. For more than a century, the familiar building blocks of organizational design, from tasks and jobs to teams, management layers, and hierarchies, have reflected those constraints. AI doesn’t remove them entirely, but it alters them enough that leaders can ask a more consequential question: What can this company do that wasn’t possible before? Most organizations are not yet asking, let alone answering, that question. AI adoption is scaling rapidly, and individuals are already seeing meaningful productivity gains, but enterprise value has not kept pace.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/podcast/this-week-in-business/ai-is-changing-jobs-not-eliminating-them/

Are communication skills still important in the age of AI? Research says yes - RM Barton, Purdue

In an artificial intelligence (AI)-mediated world, many professionals are seeking skills that will help them weather technological shifts and find career stability. Emerging research suggests that the skills the future job market will demand most are skills that technology cannot replace or replicate: people skills. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, the importance of people skills will likely be emphasized by generative AI. Professionals who know how to work with other people, lead effectively, manage projects, communicate well and collaborate with AI as expert prompters and reviewers will fare better than professionals without these skills. Communication is one such people skill that is becoming more important in the age of AI. Looking at today’s complex organizational environment, the reasons are clear. Effective communicators can help companies avoid costly communication disasters and public relations (PR) missteps. They can also collaborate with AI tools to develop better prompts and outputs, create messages that connect with human audiences and AI search engines alike, build trust with stakeholders, and manage important relationships.

https://www.purdue.edu/online/are-communication-skills-still-important-in-the-age-of-ai-research-says-yes/

As frontier models go rogue, colleges beef up AI cybersecurity education - Eric Geller, Cybersecurity Dive

As the world increasingly recognizes the need for safer and more secure AI, U.S. colleges and universities are trying to meet a growing demand for AI security education that prepares future workers to safeguard businesses’ and governments’ powerful AI systems. AI cybersecurity education programs, from undergraduate and graduate classes to professional certificates, are sprouting up all over the country, as experts warn that young people need to understand how to manage AI risks as they enter a workforce teeming with algorithms, models and agents. The recent autonomous-hacking incidents involving frontier AI models have further underscored the need for cybersecurity education.

https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/ai-cybersecurity-education-university/832132/

The AI Invasion Has Come for Mathematics - Ahmed Abbes and Haynes Miller, Inside Higher Ed

On Tuesday, OpenAI released hundreds of new mathematical findings, following closely on the resolution by OpenAI’s bots of the Millennium Prize problem addressing the Navier-Stokes equations. This was a true blitz: 10,000 internal agents spent 88 hours and produced a proof apparently satisfying the criteria of this challenge, issued by the Clay Mathematics Institute some 25 years ago. The company is thought to have spent millions on this stunt. The mathematical community that had been converging on this example—and it is just that, an example—has been digesting this new work with professional interest.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2026/10/09/ai-invasion-has-come-mathematics-opinion

The Superintelligence Force: A Moment to Reconsider the Pace and Nature of AI - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

I am not entirely convinced that the “Superintelligence Force” is the best way to cool down the competition and slow down the race. However, here we are. This is the only available opportunity to cool down the competition and pursue a safer approach to further development. Although higher education was not heavily consulted in the preparation of this model, we will be impacted by the priorities and products that are produced as a result. Hence, we should actively seek inclusion in the process. We must also recognize that hundreds of other development efforts are being pursued in smaller independent as well as larger military and other governmental initiatives around the world. Some of these are providing open-source solutions that can then be further developed and applied by unregulated actors.

https://www.insidehighered.com/index%2ephp/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2026/10/16/superintelligence-force-reconsidering-pace-ai

He Helped Create Modern AI. Now the ‘Godfather of AI’ Wants an FDA-Style Approval System for It. - Sherin Shibu, Entrepreneur

• Geoffrey Hinton is known as the “Godfather of AI” due to his pioneering work in the field.
• The Nobel Prize-winning computer scientist wants new AI models to be approved like drugs.
• Hinton’s call for greater oversight arrives as AI industry insiders raise alarms about the technology they are helping build.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/the-godfather-of-ai-wants-an-fda-style-approval-process

Workforce in motion: Skills and pathways to future jobs in the United States - María Jesús Ramírez, Kweilin Ellingrud, Tanguy Catlin, Diego Castresana, and Anna Kortis -McKinsey

AI, automation, and broader structural trends are accelerating the reallocation of work across the US economy. Capturing its benefits requires developing new professional pathways and skills, and reducing barriers between declining and growing occupations. The US economy could create more jobs in the next decade than will be replaced through automation, but the change may require the largest and most sustained workforce transformation in US history. Jobs of the future, particularly growing jobs, could pay more on average but require more skills. Roughly 60 percent of growing employment could be in the top two wage quintiles, with much of the increase concentrated in healthcare, construction, and management occupations. Conversely, more than 70 percent of declining employment could be in the bottom two quintiles, primarily in office and administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics occupations.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/workforce-in-motion-skills-and-pathways-to-future-jobs-in-the-united-states

Deluge of 377 OpenAI proofs bewilders the math world - Konstantin Kakaes, Quanta Magazine

The technology firm OpenAI has announced the solutions to 377 open questions across nearly every mathematical subdiscipline. The results are spread over 722 papers, which OpenAI has uploaded to the Github code repository. They were achieved by a new, unnamed internal model that the company intends to release publicly in the near future, once they deem it safe. All of the papers were written by this model; only one, on a zero-free region of the Riemann zeta function, was edited by a person.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/updates/transformation/

UW-Stevens Point to host lectures, panels on strategies to navigate AI misinformation - UW Stevens Point

The “Truth, Trust and Technology: Information in the Age of AI” series for the 2026-2027 academic year aims to help people navigate the complexities of information people must evaluate with an abundance of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within digital platforms we read and use. This kickoff event, “Technology Brought Us Here, Now What?” features presenter Chad Johnson, associate professor in the Department of Computing and New Media Technologies. Participants will learn more about how humans can protect themselves and adapt to a constantly changing technological environment. “In this series, we will attempt to cut through the smoke screen, separate the signal form the noise, understand what we’re facing, and learn about how to survive it all,” said Johnson.

https://www.uwsp.edu/news/article/uw-stevens-point-to-host-lectures-panels-on-strategies-to-navigate-ai-misinformation/

Gonzaga Community Explores AI Through Faith, Ethics, and Dialogue - Gonzago University

This fall, faculty, staff, and students are participating in reading groups focused on Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which examines artificial intelligence through the lenses of human dignity, ethics, faith, and the common good. The discussions are creating space for the Gonzaga community to engage thoughtfully with one of the most significant technological developments of our time. The first fall AI reading group session was organized through Foley Library and invited participants to discuss the encyclical and its implications for higher education and society. The conversations reflect Gonzaga's commitment to cura personalis, educating the whole person, and preparing students not only for careers, but for lives of purpose and ethical discernment about the use of this powerful new technology.

https://www.gonzaga.edu/news-events/stories/magnifica-humanitas-reading-groups

Why more employers are hiring workers without college degrees - Heather Olinger, Maura Barrett - Scripts News

A growing number of employers are prioritizing skills over college degrees, opening new career paths for workers with experience and certifications. As companies struggle to fill jobs and industries evolve faster than traditional education systems can keep up, more employers are shifting toward skills-based hiring — focusing on experience, certifications, and practical abilities instead of diplomas alone. Career experts say it’s creating one of the strongest job markets in years for workers without college degrees. “Skill-based hiring has really been picking up,” said Dr. Jasmine Escalera, career expert for resume builder Zety. “Companies are thinking more about the skills and experience they need rather than just the college degree.” The shift is especially noticeable in industries like skilled trades, healthcare, technology, and sales — fields where employers often need hands-on experience more than traditional academic credentials. According to Escalera, younger workers are also approaching careers differently than previous generations. Instead of climbing a traditional corporate ladder, many Gen Z workers are prioritizing flexibility, meaningful work, and opportunities to build skills that can transfer between industries.

https://www.scrippsnews.com/politics/economy/why-more-employers-are-hiring-workers-without-college-degrees

Five design principles for meaningful online global learning - Marcia Cross, Times Higher Education

As digital technologies transform access to both information and education, how can universities offer distinctive educational value for professional learners online? Online programmes that bring together professionals from different organisations, sectors or countries can distinctly support this sense-making process. My department does this by starting from a simple idea: online learning does not happen in isolation from professional practice. Learners make sense of concepts, frameworks and methods through their professional experiences, but those experiences can also shape the assumptions that they bring to new problems. Learning solely within one setting can, therefore, reinforce existing assumptions as much as it challenges them. 

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/five-design-principles-meaningful-online-global-learning

City Colleges sees shift from in-person to online enrollment -the Channels, Luz Elena Del Pielago, Santa Barbara City College

The numbers show that the challenge of filling classes has extended to departments across City College. While the reasons behind the decline are not completely clear yet, the difference between online and in-person enrollment has become noticeable.Van Arsdale said that one possible factor could be for the growing use of artificial intelligence. “It’s a response to that,” he said, when discussing some of the changes happening in education. However there may be several reasons in-person classes seem to be less attended by City College students. Since 2023-24, the number of in-person sections has increased by 2.81%. LaFave wrote that as of 2025-26, 52.61% of the City College sections were in-person. This may mean that the increase of in-person classes has exceeded the demand for sections that have been partially met by online classes.

https://www.thechannels.org/news/2026/10/06/city-colleges-sees-shift-from-in-person-to-online-enrollment/

What Does the Credential Still Certify? Cognitive Stewardship for AI-Mediated Education - Kai Yao, AIES 2026

Generative  AI  is  changing  a  basic  premise  of  educationalassessment:  that  submitted  work  can  reliably  evidence  thehuman  capacities  a  credential  claims  to  certify.  The  chal-lenge  is  not  simply  whether  students  use  AI,  but  what  re-mains  inferable  about  learning  when  some  cognitive  workhas been delegated to a system. This paper developscogni-tive  stewardship,  a  framework  for  AI-mediated  assessmentthat links the learning claim, delegation boundary, evidencestandard, and safeguards. We then audit verified public gen-erative AI assessment guidance from 30 universities.

https://ojs.aaai.org/index.php/AIES/article/view/43349/50909

Want to be a lifelong learner? Don’t go it alone - Celine Nguyen, Psyche

The history of autodidacticism shows that learning has always been social. The right relationships open intellectual horizons. The internet is full of resources for self-directed learning: for any subject, you can easily find blog posts about essential texts, links to university syllabi, and hours of YouTube lectures. When I attempted to make use of these guides, however, I often found myself disengaged and unfocused. I chastised myself for scrolling through social media while watching online lectures, or forgetting most of the ideas inside the books I read. The problem, however, wasn’t my attention span. It was my approach: I was struggling because I saw learning as a solitary pursuit.

https://psyche.co/ideas/want-to-be-a-lifelong-learner-dont-go-it-alone?comment

64 Online Learning Statistics for 2026 - Toya S., National University

Who Is Enrolling in Online Education? The typical online learner is not a recent high school graduate experimenting with digital formats. Most are what NU calls ANDers: working adults balancing careers, families, and education. This demographic shift is reshaping how institutions will deliver instruction.

As of Fall 2023, approximately 54.3% of all U.S. college students took at least one online course, up from 37.2% in Fall 2019, representing a structural “new normal” well above pre-pandemic baselines.

In Fall 2023, nearly 3.9 million undergraduate students were adult learners aged 25 or older, representing 24% of the total undergraduate population.

69% of adult learners (students aged 25 and older) were employed either full or part time while pursuing their degrees in 2022.

https://www.nu.edu/blog/64-online-learning-statistics/

Workforce in motion: Skills and pathways to future jobs in the United States - María Jesús Ramírez, Kweilin Ellingrud, Tanguy Catlin, Diego Castresana, and Anna Kortis, McKinsey

The US economy could create more jobs in the next decade than will be replaced through automation, but the change may require the largest and most sustained workforce transformation in US history. We estimate that roughly 11 million workers in declining occupations may need to transition to new jobs, ranging from six million to 16 million depending on the pace of automation adoption and its impact on labor demand. Jobs of the future, particularly growing jobs, could pay more on average but require more skills. Administrative support, retail and sales, and transportation and logistics occupations. One in seven workers could have a direct pathway into growing jobs, but almost half may face an unpaved pathway. While every transitioning worker has a route into growing work, Overall, more than 70 percent of workers could require some level of reinvention because new tasks may require more than 15 percent of their time. Three types of skills help workers move, move up, and keep adapting.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/Workforce-in-motion-Skills-and-pathways-to-future-jobs-in-the-United-States

The ‘AI and Future of Work’ Series — How the University is preparing students for what is next - Lidia Zur Muhlen, Cavalier Daily

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, college graduates of the last three years are entering a challenging job market. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 5.7 percent in Q1 of 2026, compared with 4.23 percent for workers overall. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2019, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.3 percent and for workers overall, was 3.5 percent. In a recent Gallup Inc poll, 79 percent of Americans believe that artificial intelligence will reduce the number of jobs over the next 10 years. A recent study by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab has found no evidence of “widespread” job displacement. The study looked at young workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations — jobs in which AI can perform most of the tasks like customer service and software development. Ultimately, its findings illuminated that there would have been a 19 percent drop in employment in late 2026 for AI-exposed jobs if the market kept pace with less AI-exposed occupations’ employment trends.

https://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2026/10/the-ai-and-future-of-work-series-how-the-university-is-preparing-students-for-what-is-next

New AI Framework Teaches Robots to Choose Their Own Skills and When to Use Them - Bioengineer

One of the most stubborn problems in artificial intelligence is teaching an agent to carry out tasks that stretch far into the future, where rewards arrive rarely and the path to success is measured in hundreds of small decisions. A robot asked to stack blocks into a pyramid or open a microwave must chain together dozens of primitive motions, and a learning algorithm that treats every one of those motions as an independent choice quickly drowns in the sheer scale of the search. Researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and collaborating institutions have now unveiled a framework that tackles this problem head-on by letting an agent learn not only which skills to deploy, but also how long each skill should last, adapting that timing on the fly as circumstances change.

https://bioengineer.org/new-ai-framework-teaches-robots-to-choose-their-own-skills-and-when-to-use-them/