{"id":4551,"date":"2026-04-22T15:43:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4551"},"modified":"2026-04-22T15:43:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T15:43:11","slug":"elon-musk-thinks-college-is-basically-for-fun-but-his-former-tesla-hr-chief-tells-gen-z-even-their-liberal-arts-degrees-are-more-valuable-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/?p=4551","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk thinks college is ‘basically for fun’\u2014but his former Tesla HR chief tells Gen Z even their liberal arts degrees are more valuable than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Gen Z\u2019s relationship with higher education has never been more fraught. Soaring tuition costs and a brutal entry-level job market have left many young people questioning whether getting a degree was worth it at all.<\/p>\n

But Valerie Capers Workman, who served as vice president of people at Tesla, has a sharply different message for the graduating class of 2026: don\u2019t buy the noise. This comes even as her former boss, Elon Musk, is part of the chorus of powerful voices casting a doubt on college.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not let anyone, not a tech founder, not a headline, not a podcast host, convince you that your education was a waste,\u201d Workman said last week at the Defining the Future conference at California State University, San Bernardino. \u201cIt was not. It is more valuable today than it has ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

The skills a degree develops\u2014the ability to reason, question, and lead with humanity\u2014are precisely what artificial intelligence cannot replicate, she argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And counterintuitively, it\u2019s liberal arts fields like history, English, and the arts that she says are becoming more relevant in the AI era, not less, despite long being dismissed as financially impractical.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the age of AI, these disciplines are not \u2018soft skills,\u2019\u201d Workman, who currently serves as the chief human resources officer at Empower Pharmacy, added. \u201cThey are the source code for the emotional intelligence, ethical reasoning, cultural fluency, and critical thinking that machines will never have.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to use your degree to land a job in today\u2019s AI world, according to Tesla\u2019s former head of HR<\/p>\n

Workman\u2019s optimism about degrees comes at a time when landing a job right out of college has become significantly harder.<\/p>\n

Job postings on Handshake\u2014an early careers platform where Workman also formerly held a C-suite role\u2014declined more than 16% year over year as of August 2025, while the average number of applications per posting rose 26%. For the class of 2026, who will soon begin walking across the stage, more than 60% are pessimistic about their career prospects, with AI\u2019s disruption of the job market a central frustration.<\/p>\n

Workman\u2019s advice to graduates\u2014regardless of their degree or desired profession\u2014isn\u2019t to lean on their diploma alone. It\u2019s to pair it with something their predecessors never had to learn: AI fluency.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not get to sit this one out,\u201d she said. \u201cYou do not get to say, \u2018I am not a tech person.\u2019 That identity is retired. If you plan to work, lead, build, or earn in this economy, you must become fluent in artificial intelligence the way your parents\u2019 generation had to become fluent in email and the internet, the way your grandparents\u2019 generation had to become fluent in the personal computer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She offered two concentrated ways to get started. First, learn prompt engineering\u2014and treat it seriously: \u201cTreat it like a second language,\u201d Workman said. \u201cThe people who can instruct AI clearly, specifically, and strategically will out-earn and out-perform everyone else in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, master the art of asking great questions: \u201cThe graduates who win this decade will not be the ones with the best answers. They will be the ones with the best questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune reached out to Workman for further comment.<\/p>\n

Tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, Alex Karp, and Elon Musk aren\u2019t sold higher education is worth it<\/p>\n

While Workman joins a growing number of business leaders who remain bullish on higher education, many of the loudest voices in tech are not.<\/p>\n

Mark Zuckerberg\u2014who famously dropped out of Harvard University after launching Facebook from his dorm room\u2014has expressed his concern that colleges are failing to equip students for today\u2019s workforce.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not sure that college is preparing people for the jobs that they need to have today. I think that there\u2019s a big issue on that, and all the student debt issues are\u2026really big,\u201d he said last year on Theo Von\u2019s podcast.<\/p>\n

Palantir CEO Alex Karp, who has three degrees of his own, has been particularly scathing, criticizing higher education for both the debt it saddles students with and what he calls ideological \u201cindoctrination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything you learned at your school and college about how the world works is intellectually incorrect,\u201d Karp told CNBC in 2025.<\/p>\n

Elon Musk\u2014Workman\u2019s former boss\u2014has echoed that concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think college is basically for fun and to prove that you can do your chores, but they\u2019re not for learning,\u201d Musk said at the Satellite 2020 conference, adding that requiring a degree for employment is \u201cabsurd.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Tesla, the main requirement for landing a job is \u201cexceptional ability,\u201d Musk said, who received a bachelor\u2019s from the University of Pennsylvania in 1997.<\/p>\n

But despite the anti-college rhetoric from Silicon Valley, there hasn\u2019t been a mass exodus from higher education. Total postsecondary enrollment in the United States grew 1.0% in fall 2025, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center\u2014suggesting that many Gen Z are still betting on degrees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

#Elon #Musk #thinks #college #basically #funbut #Tesla #chief #tells #Gen #liberal #arts #degrees #valuable<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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