Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has joined a growing chorus of tech leaders questioning the value of traditional higher education. In a recent appearance on the This Past Weekend podcast hosted by comedian Theo Von, the Facebook founder said that while college can provide important social experiences, it increasingly fails to prepare students for the demands of the modern workforce.
“I’m not sure that college is preparing people for the jobs that they need to have today,” Zuckerberg said during the wide-ranging conversation. “All the student debt issues are… really big.”
The billionaire, who dropped out of Harvard to build what would become one of the world’s most powerful tech companies, has long supported alternative education models. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, recently funded two tuition-free private schools aimed at serving low-income families. Their philanthropic efforts are part of a broader shift in how some tech leaders envision the future of education.
“College is just so expensive for so many people and then you graduate and you’re in debt,” Zuckerberg said, arguing that the current system offers too little in return. “It would be one thing if it was just kind of like a social experience… The fact that it’s not preparing you for the jobs that you need and you’re kind of starting off in this big [financial] hole… I think that’s not good.”
He also suggested that society is approaching a tipping point: “There’s going to have to be a reckoning… and people are going to have to figure out whether that makes sense. It’s sort of been this taboo thing to say, ‘Maybe not everyone needs to go to college.’ But people are probably coming around to that opinion a little more now than maybe like 10 years ago.”
Despite his criticism, Zuckerberg acknowledged that college still holds non-academic value. “There’s a question of how much [college] is about learning and how much of it is about… learning how to be a grownup before you go out into the world,” he said.
Reflecting on his own college experience, he credited Harvard with introducing him to key figures in his personal and professional life. “I met a lot of people who were really important in my life,” he noted. “I mean Priscilla [his wife], my cofounders at my company, a bunch of people who are still close friends to this day. So I think that’s almost more of it than like whatever class you took.”
Zuckerberg’s remarks come amid renewed debates over the relevance, affordability, and reform of higher education, especially as new career paths, AI disruption, and non-traditional upskilling programmes gain popularity among younger generations.
