Will learning curated by employers replace degrees?

Following the recent release of the Alan Milburn report in the United
Kingdom and our article earlier this month “Universities must tackle the youth unemployment crisis”, we continue to believe that a minority of people genuinely want to see the decline of higher education. Universities remain central to research, civic life, social mobility and the development of deep intellectual capability.

But goodwill alone will not protect the sector. A more pressing question now sits beneath debates about employability and skills shortages. If universities do not future-proof their offer through deeper and more credible partnerships with employers and industry, what exactly prevents employers from educating and training people themselves?

This question was foreshadowed in recent analyses of shifting global labour markets and the role of higher education. In University World News I argued that universities have been slow to adjust to changes in employer expectations and in integrating skills, experience and adaptability into graduate outcomes and that this misalignment threatens the traditional social compact around degrees.

I also noted the rise of alternative pathways and hybrid entry models that blur the lines between work and education, underscoring the need for universities to reinvent how they work with industry if they are to remain relevant as gateways to opportunity.

For much of the past century, companies relied on universities not because they were perfectly aligned with labour market needs but because they solved several difficult problems at once. Universities provided structured learning pathways, widely recognised credentials and the ability to educate large cohorts without employers having to build complex internal systems. In return, employers accepted that many graduates would still require substantial on-the-job training.

That trade-off is now under strain, not because employers have become impatient but because the structural conditions that once made universities indispensable are changing.

Why the old barriers are weakening

The first major shift is the industrialisation of online learning. Global platforms such as Coursera, Udemy, edX, FutureLearn and LinkedIn Learning now offer employers access to vast libraries of courses covering technical, professional and managerial skills. Many large employers already subscribe at enterprise level, allowing them to curate learning pathways aligned directly to their operational needs and to track completion and performance at scale.

The second shift is speed. Skills requirements, particularly in areas shaped by AI, data and automation, are evolving far faster than traditional curriculum cycles. Employers increasingly need learning that can be updated continuously rather than every few years. AI tools now allow training content to be personalised, assessed and refreshed in near real time, significantly reducing the expertise and cost once required to design internal learning programmes.

The third shift is the changing nature of credential value. In many sectors, demonstrable capability now carries more weight than where learning took place.

LinkedIn’s Workplace Learning Report 2025 highlights how employers are embedding learning directly into performance frameworks rather than treating education as a pre-employment signal. Scale, once a decisive advantage for universities, is also no longer prohibitive, with multinational firms routinely training tens of thousands of employees globally through internal academies and digital platforms.

Taken together, these changes make employer-led education not only possible but increasingly rational.

What employer-led education looks like in practice

Under an employer-led model, education and training are embedded directly into employment rather than treated as a prerequisite. This approach can apply to school leavers or to anyone over the age of 18 entering the workforce and-or changing job roles and-or employer.

An individual is hired into a role with structured learning explicitly written into their contract. Within the first three months of employment, they are required to complete, for example, two weeks of formal training drawn from an agreed set of courses selected by the employer.

This training is delivered as dedicated study leave, signalling that skills development is a core part of work itself rather than an optional extra undertaken in an employee’s own time. If, however, the employee undertakes the learning in their own time, they are able to take the study leave as vacation days, increasing the agency of employees.

Where an employee completes the required courses ahead of schedule, employers could respond by allocating additional learning aligned to more advanced responsibilities and, where appropriate, by recognising that commitment through a financial bonus. Over time, this approach normalises structured learning as a permanent feature of employment rather than a one-off onboarding exercise.

Courses would be allocated throughout an individual’s career, with the requisite study leave built in, ensuring that skills acquisition evolves alongside the future of work and is regularly refreshed in response to technological advances, regulatory change or shifts in company strategy.

From the employer’s perspective, this creates a workforce whose capabilities remain aligned with business needs rather than becoming obsolete between promotions. From the employee’s perspective, it offers paid work, recognised learning, flexibility and a credible alternative to taking on significant debt before entering the labour market. This is not a hypothetical model. Variants of it already exist.

Employers who are already doing this

One of the clearest examples of this approach comes from Deloitte, whose BrightStart programme recruits school leavers and over-18s directly into paid roles while embedding structured education into employment. Participants work on real client projects from the outset while completing professional qualifications through funded study leave, with learning designed around business needs rather than academic abstraction.

A similar logic underpins the apprenticeship and early career programmes offered by Google, which provide paid, work-based learning pathways without requiring a four-year degree. Participants receive structured training in areas such as IT support, data analytics and software development, combined with mentoring and on-the-job experience.

Beyond these formal programmes, many employers are quietly embedding continuous learning through enterprise subscriptions to LinkedIn Learning, with training tied to promotion criteria and role progression rather than treated as optional self-improvement. Education becomes ongoing, modular and strategically aligned to organisational priorities.

These examples matter because they demonstrate that employer-led education is already credible, scalable and attractive to both organisations and individuals. They also show that employers are not waiting for universities to lead.

Why this should concern universities

This is not an argument for the abolition of higher education. Employer-led education is efficient, but it is also narrow. It optimises for immediate productivity rather than long-term adaptability. It struggles to cultivate deep critical thinking, ethical reasoning, cross-disciplinary insight and the ability to work through complex, ambiguous problems over time.

Universities remain uniquely placed to develop these capabilities. They are able to bring together students from different disciplines, cultures and perspectives. They create environments where ideas can be challenged, synthesised and tested beyond the confines of a single organisation’s priorities. They underpin research, innovation and the broader knowledge economy in ways that employer training alone cannot replicate.

The real risk for universities is not replacement but marginalisation. Employers will not abandon universities out of hostility or ideology. They will do so pragmatically if universities fail to add distinctive value beyond what employers can now deliver themselves.

The point of intervention universities still control

What still prevents employers from fully bypassing universities is value, not tradition. Where universities offer something genuinely complementary to employer training, employers engage willingly. Where they do not, employers increasingly see little reason to wait.

This is why the future of higher education depends on far deeper and more operational partnerships with industry. Not symbolic advisory boards or occasional guest lectures but genuine co-design of curricula, shared ownership of applied projects and clear accountability for graduate capability.

Universities that integrate live industry problems, cross-faculty collaboration and work-based learning into the core of their programmes make themselves harder to replace. Those that acknowledge the existence of external learning platforms and deliberately build them into a broader educational journey strengthen rather than weaken their position.

Equally important is evidence. In a world where employers can validate skills quickly and cheaply, universities must be able to demonstrate what graduates actually achieve, including how they progress into employment, sectors and earnings over time. Outcomes data is no longer a marketing add-on; it is strategic infrastructure.

A narrowing window for action

Employer-led education is not a distant threat. It is already happening, particularly at entry level. The platforms, tools and enterprise models are in place, and leading employers are demonstrating that they can recruit, train and retain talent without relying on traditional degree pathways.

If universities want to remain central to skills development and workforce preparation, they need to act decisively. Future-proofing higher education means embedding partnerships with employers, integrating work-based learning as standard and being honest about where universities add unique value.

Most people want higher education to endure. The surest way to achieve that is not to dismiss employer-led alternatives but to respond to them intelligently before they become the default.

Louise Nicol is the founder of alsocan and Asia Careers Group SDN BHD. Asia Careers Group assists universities in developing cost-effective employer engagement strategies and showcasing graduate outcomes at recruitment events.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.