ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Just after 1 a.m. on a recent Friday morning, James DeVaney, the Associate Vice Provost for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan, returned to Ann Arbor from the QS Back to School Summit in New York. The transition from the high-level discussions in Manhattan to the practical applications in Michigan served as a microcosm of the current state of higher education: a field caught between identifying a massive systemic problem and racing to implement a viable solution.
For three days in New York, a cohort of university leaders, workforce development experts, and global investors had returned repeatedly to a common concern and a shared imperative for the artificial intelligence era. The consensus was clear: higher education needs to do more throughout the undergraduate experience to prepare students for work. This preparation is no longer just about securing a first job; it is about equipping students to enter a lifetime of learning and continuous adaptation in a landscape where the ground is constantly shifting.
A few hours after his return, DeVaney walked into the University of Michigan’s Center for Academic Innovation. There, the theoretical challenges discussed in New York were being met with a concrete response. He welcomed a diverse group of students, faculty, and professionals from some of the world’s leading technology and industrial firms, including Epic Games, Rivian, Volkswagen Group Technologies, Ford, General Motors, Bombardier, and Omnicom.
“In New York, we spent three days talking about the problem,” DeVaney noted. “In Ann Arbor, I saw one version of the solution taking shape.”
While a single immersive industry day cannot resolve the massive challenges facing higher education, it provides the building blocks of a new model. In this emerging paradigm, career preparation is woven into the undergraduate experience, and industry serves as a partner in education rather than simply a destination after graduation.
A New Test of Value
A central message from the QS Summit was that the college degree must increasingly prove its value. As students and families pay closer attention to outcomes, affordability, and opportunity, the question has become more direct: what does an undergraduate education enable someone to do next?
This question, DeVaney argues, deserves a thoughtful and multifaceted answer. The value of higher education cannot be reduced to a starting salary, a single employment outcome, or the immediate needs of a specific employer. Universities bear broader responsibilities, including helping students develop intellectual depth, leading lives of meaning, advancing knowledge, and cultivating informed citizens.
However, DeVaney warns that institutions must not hide behind the breadth of that mission to avoid difficult questions about how education expands opportunity. Students deserve to emerge from college with more than a transcript and a credential. Universities owe students opportunities to develop capabilities they can apply, produce evidence of their skills, and build the confidence to continue learning as the world changes around them.
This shift is particularly vital because career readiness is no longer a one-time achievement. With technologies evolving and industries reorganizing, entire categories of work are being automated or newly created. Preparing someone for a first job is necessary, but no longer sufficient. The deeper responsibility is to cultivate "continuous readiness"—the ability to keep learning and creating opportunity throughout a multi-decade career.
Anxiety Without Fatalism
As the labor market shifts, many students express growing anxiety about their prospects. Headlines regarding AI eliminating early-career jobs and employers reducing entry-level hiring have led many to doubt whether the opportunities they expected will exist upon graduation.
While these concerns are legitimate, DeVaney suggests the responsibility of the university is neither to dismiss this anxiety nor to amplify it into fatalism. While the labor market is changing and universities need to respond with urgency, students do not need to wait for institutions to fully evolve. They have more ways than ever to engage with authentic problems, learn professional tools, and build portfolios that make their emerging capabilities visible.
The core message to students is that career readiness cannot wait until graduation. Fortunately, the tools to build that readiness are already becoming available within the university ecosystem.
Information Is No Longer Scarce, Judgment Is
The urgency for a new educational model is driven by a fundamental change in our relationship with information. Higher education developed much of its existing structure in a world where high-quality information and expertise were relatively scarce. Today, generative AI enables knowledge to be produced faster than any individual can absorb it.
In this new reality, the university’s role must shift. Institutions must equip students with the ability to determine what matters, what can be trusted, how ideas connect, and when knowledge should be put to use.
“Universities create distinctive value when they provide the context, community, expert guidance, and authentic experiences through which information becomes judgment and knowledge becomes capability,” DeVaney explained.
As routine tasks become easier to automate, human capabilities—such as critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, and ethical judgment—become far more valuable. Technical capabilities remain important, but they must be developed alongside these human traits. The future will reward those who can exercise judgment about when and how to use powerful tools and connect technology to meaningful human challenges.
From Handoff to Partnership
For decades, the journey from college to career has been treated as a "handoff" occurring near graduation. Universities provided the education, career centers helped with resumes, and employers arrived at the end to recruit the "finished product." While internships offered a bridge, academic and professional experiences often remained disconnected.
The "Designing an Unreal Future: An Epic x Michigan Industry Day" event represented a departure from this siloed approach. While real-time 3-D technology was the organizing theme, the event was not merely about technical training. Students explored how technology is transforming work across automotive design, aerospace, advertising, and simulation. They participated in hands-on demonstrations and received direct feedback on their portfolios from industry professionals.
The diversity of experts—ranging from engineers and designers to artists and business leaders—allowed students to see that the future of mobility and immersive experience will emerge from the intersection of multiple disciplines.
The day concluded with the launch of the Epic Games and Future of Mobility Early Talent Competition, created in partnership with Podium Education. This competition invites students to engage with an authentic industry challenge, work across disciplines, and demonstrate their capabilities in a way that provides credible evidence of their potential.
More Pathways Than Students Realize
While the changing labor market can make the path to a career feel narrower, the pathways through which students can prepare have actually become more varied. Internships remain important, but they are no longer the only way to gain experience. Industry challenges, applied research, project-based courses, and interdisciplinary competitions all offer avenues for growth.
DeVaney highlighted a promising example from the University of Virginia called AI4VA. Through this program, UVA students work with Virginia businesses to explore how AI might address real organizational needs. Students gain experience applying emerging technology in a real-world context, while businesses gain access to fresh ideas.
To evaluate whether an opportunity is worthwhile, DeVaney suggests students ask three questions:
- Does this experience require me to apply what I am learning to a real problem?
- Does it produce evidence of what I can do that someone outside of a classroom would find credible?
- Does it help me better understand and articulate how I can create value?
A student who can answer these questions repeatedly throughout their education will graduate with a portfolio of evidence and a network of relationships that a simple transcript cannot provide.
Technology Is Not the Point
Seven years ago, the University of Michigan announced a campus-wide extended-reality (XR) initiative based at the Center for Academic Innovation. From its inception, the initiative’s promise extended beyond any particular software or hardware.
An early Epic MegaGrant helped the university recruit and train a cohort of 50 student fellows in Unreal Engine and professional real-time workflows. These students moved from learning about the technology to using it in consequential work, building simulations and writing code alongside faculty and staff.
The objective was not simply to train students in the tools currently used by industry, as those tools will inevitably change. The larger goal was to teach students how to approach unfamiliar technology, work with people across different areas of expertise, and navigate ambiguity. The aim is to make students capable of remaining ready as the nature of work evolves.
Designing a Connected University
Isolated experiences, however valuable, are insufficient. The larger challenge for higher education is to build a more connected learning ecosystem. This requires creating opportunities for authentic work across the entire undergraduate experience, not just during a final-semester capstone.
It also requires a more intuitive infrastructure. Students increasingly expect their university experiences to be as seamless as the technology they use in their daily lives. While DeVaney notes that "productive struggle" remains essential to education, institutional systems should not be so difficult to navigate that exceptional opportunities remain hidden.
A more connected model would show learners how different experiences relate to one another and what capabilities they are developing. This relationship should not end at commencement. Through initiatives like Michigan Online, the university is building an infrastructure that allows learners to return as their goals and industries evolve.
If graduates are expected to engage in continuous learning, universities must provide mechanisms for them to return throughout their careers for shorter experiences, new credentials, and expert guidance.
Urgency, Agency, and Hope
The shift toward a more integrated model of education and industry is not about designing every experience around the immediate needs of an employer. Rather, it is about recognizing that the enduring purposes of higher education become more powerful when students have the chance to put knowledge into motion.
For universities, the imperative is to make applied learning and industry engagement accessible to every student, regardless of their background or social capital.
For students, the message is one of agency. "You do not need to predict the future or prepare for a narrowly defined job," DeVaney says. "Seek experiences that require you to create, collaborate, and solve problems. Learn how to tell the evolving story of what you can contribute."
The future of work remains uncertain, but that uncertainty makes the capacity to learn, adapt, and demonstrate value more important than ever. The degree should open a door and prepare graduates for everything that lies beyond it. Career readiness, it seems, is a journey that begins long before graduation and continues long after.
