What is the point of education?

What have I learned so far in my life? I’ve spent almost two decades in school and university. Education, which is commonly understood as the process of acquiring skills and knowledge, has been the center of my life and is pretty much all I’ve done since I was born. It’s not just me ‒ this privilege is normal for most people in developed societies. Yet, if I think about it, I can do shockingly few things. Sure, I’ve learned about language, culture, history, math, physics, and more specialized subjects like management and finance.

But let’s face it ‒ first, I’ve forgotten 90% of the details, and second, those are all intangible things. If, all of a sudden, society were to disappear, I wouldn’t last a day caring for myself. Imagine I had dedicated 16 years of my life to doing something real, like becoming a blacksmith. I could make my own katana. How cool would that be? Instead, I’m practicing abstract mental tasks, sitting in my ivory tower. So, in that sense, let’s do what I can do best ‒ reflect on education and explore whether there’s a deeper purpose to be found in it.

Before thinking about how education benefits the individual, let’s ask what its benefit is for society. Our tribal ancestors didn’t know formal education, although one could argue that passing on hunting techniques for saber-toothed tigers already fulfilled the definition. The broader, more abstract form of education we know today first emerged in ancient times.

With the rise of the great empires like Rome, Egypt, and Greece, our ancestors invented writing and mathematics. Elites were trained to run the state and studied logic, rhetoric, and philosophy. Think about it ‒ compared to what came before, this marked a remarkable shift in how people spent their time. They learned things that didn’t directly help them survive, but instead created systems and societies that made everyone, especially themselves, better off.

In the centuries that followed, more and more people gained access to education. This allowed wider participation in shaping society. People learned to think critically, spread ideas, and build belief systems. With education came reason and justice. It was the foundation of democratic systems. And with it, the world has arguably become a safer, wealthier, and simply better place. Today, education is the basis of every advanced human society. That gives us a clear societal purpose: without education, society as we know it couldn’t exist.

And this shift has come a long way. While in ancient times most people still worked in “real” jobs, directly contributing to the fulfillment of basic human needs, today, the vast majority of jobs are disconnected from that reality. This idea is so deeply ingrained that we rarely question it: we work in imagined roles, for imagined companies, pushing imagined projects forward, all while following imagined rules. Education has become an end in itself ‒ creating roles that exist simply because they require education. Modern education, hence, is designed to produce obedient workers who keep this self-sustaining system running.

Now, what’s the point of education for individuals within this system? Traditionally, being educated gave people an edge ‒ more knowledge, more skills, more opportunities. That edge often led to innovation and was rewarded with rank, influence, and wealth. For millions, education served as a launchpad out of poverty. But is that still true today? In a society where nearly everyone is educated, even if in different specializations, that individual advantage seems to shrink or disappear entirely. And what happens when no one wants to do the jobs that actually put food on the table?

I worry that the skills we’re taught have become so widespread that they no longer make anyone stand out. If anything, the opposite is true ‒ being able to forge a katana today is definitely more exceptional than holding a business degree. Clearly, the individual purpose of education can’t lie in knowledge alone anymore. So if education no longer gives you the competitive edge it once promised, then maybe its real value lies not in what to think, but in how to think. I came to this realization late, but education did give me something deeper. It gave me perspective. It shaped my mindset. It shaped who I am. And that, in today’s world, is the purpose I now see in it.

This conclusion, however, stands on shaky ground. Right now, the world is changing rapidly. With AI, we’ve created machines that already outperform us in many cognitive tasks. What modern roles will remain where humans can still outperform machines? Will it still be necessary to educate people at all? And if education loses its practical necessity, what will give us purpose and meaning? While these prospects may seem unsettling, I also see hope in them. Millennia ago, scholars came together to study purely for the sake of studying. That old fascination has largely vanished in today’s world. But maybe, when the need disappears, the wonder will return...