Higher Ed Is One Missed Update Away from a Blockbuster Moment

Higher Ed Is One Missed Update Away from a Blockbuster Moment

For decades, universities have operated like they’re too big to fail. So did Blockbuster.

It wasn’t ignorance that killed Blockbuster; it was inertia. They saw Netflix coming. They even had the chance to buy it. They just couldn’t imagine a world where people would choose streaming over shelves.

Higher education is standing in that same aisle right now, clutching its VHS tapes of tradition, prestige, and four-year degrees while the world is streaming knowledge in 4K.

The Monopoly Is Over

For nearly a century, colleges owned the gateway to upward mobility. They controlled information, credentials, and access to opportunity.

But AI broke the gates.

Knowledge is no longer trapped inside lecture halls or textbooks. It’s instant, personalized, and practically free.

A student can learn advanced data analytics, negotiation strategy, or design thinking in weeks, guided by an AI tutor that never sleeps, forgets, or charges $60,000 a year.

The monopoly on learning is gone. What’s left is the illusion of exclusivity — a system still charging full price for yesterday’s operating model.

The ROI Crisis

Degrees used to guarantee opportunity. Now they mostly guarantee debt.

When tuition rises faster than inflation, while employers quietly shift from “What’s your degree?” to “Show me your work,” something fundamental has broken.

We’ve reached a turning point where proof beats pedigree. Your portfolio, your outcomes, your visible skill applications, those are the new GPA.

The harsh truth: colleges are optimizing for enrollment, not employability. They sell security in a marketplace that now rewards adaptability.

The Blockbuster Parallel

Blockbuster didn’t die because people stopped watching movies. It died because someone made watching easier, cheaper, and more aligned with modern life.

College won’t die because people stop learning. It’ll die because someone, or something, made learning faster, cheaper, and more measurable.

AI is higher education’s Netflix moment. And right now, most universities are still raising prices instead of reinventing experiences.

The Last Chance to Evolve

AI didn’t just expose higher education’s flaws, it gave it one final lifeline.

If universities act fast, they can rebuild themselves into something better: adaptive, affordable, and actually useful.

The institutions that survive won’t be the ones with the biggest campuses or endowments. They’ll be the ones who go all in on teaching AI fluency, data literacy, and creative problem-solving, the skills that sit alongside automation, not underneath it.

Imagine if colleges stopped competing with AI for information and started training humans to direct it. Instead of memorizing facts, students would learn how to question models, interpret results, and apply technology to real-world problems.

To make that happen, universities must:

• Slash the cost of access. Make learning modular, flexible, and priced like a product, not a lifetime mortgage.

• Build AI-adjacent curriculums. Every student, regardless of major, should graduate fluent in prompt design, data reasoning, and ethical automation.

• Turn professors into AI collaborators. Educators become guides and curators, not content gatekeepers.

• Replace theory with proof. Students should leave with portfolios, not just transcripts.

This isn’t about replacing professors with chatbots. It’s about turning higher education into a human + AI accelerator, where curiosity scales and learning compounds.

Example classwork changes. 

• General Education: Introduction to Computer Literacy → AI Fluency 101: How to Work with Machines, Not Against Them

• Business & Economics: Principles of Marketing → AI-Powered Growth: Automating Campaigns and Personalization

• Computer Science & Engineering: Intro to Programming (C++) → AI-Assisted Development: Building Software with Copilot and Replit

• Social Sciences & Humanities: Research Methods in Psychology → Human + Machine Insight: Using AI for Behavioral Data Analysis

• Creative Arts: Design Theory → Human-AI Co-Creation: Designing with Midjourney and DALL·E

• Healthcare & Life Sciences: Health Informatics → AI in Diagnostics and Clinical Decision Support

• Universal Requirement (All Majors): Capstone Seminar → Applied AI Project: Solving Real Problems with Automation

The tools exist. The question is whether the institutions that built the past are brave enough to teach the future.

Evolve or Fossilize

The fix isn’t complicated, but it is uncomfortable. Universities that survive this decade will:

• Integrate AI into the learning process immediately.

• Move from grading knowledge to assessing proof of skill.

• Replace “course completion” with competency certification.

• Turn classrooms into labs for creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, the things AI can’t replicate.

The future of education isn’t about distributing information. It’s about developing judgment, a skill that machines can’t master.

The Clock Is Ticking

Higher education doesn’t need to disappear. It needs to update.

Every industry that ignored digital transformation learned the same lesson: innovation doesn’t wait for tenure approval.

If universities don’t evolve fast, they won’t go out in scandal or protest, they’ll quietly fade into irrelevance, like another blue-and-yellow logo we all used to love.