First, university education is not a monolith. Technical degrees from institutions that actually teach the subject matter have value - engineers still engineer, theoreticians still work out theory, these sorts of degrees and others have real value, even in the AI future.
Second, universities that teach 'soft' subjects, liberal arts, etc., have a more difficult value proposition. And it has been, at least at prestigious institutions, connection. That is, connection to the influential, the gatekeepers to profitable employment. In fact, it is more dependent on the prestige of the institution than the quality or caliber of education. Without choosing moral or political sides, influence, connection, prestige, access to the higher-paid careers.
Only that isn't working as well as it is sold. Certainly the institutions in next tier down have less and less to sell, and placement statistics show this. Much of this is the reality of corporate employment today, if you're not an NGO, government agency or affiliate, or political influencing entity, you got very little work to offer. The starting pay is lower, the career prospects dimmer, it's not good for the English Lit major unless they present something unique.
Connection to employment was always the driver. And connection to classmates used to be rungs on the career ladder. For the most recent generations, that is failing because they are not connecting to classmates. And this fellow classmate connection always was expected to become the future career connection, even if it was merely a reference.
This all points out a deeper problem. Recent generations of entry-level employees are too often socially inept. They have a hard time fitting in, and while it is popular sport on /. to rail about corporate ineptitude, immorality, and unethical existence, you should fit in before you go about remaking the corporation. Or, put more bluntly, you need to be in there to change from the inside. But the incoming generations are so inept that they are stalling their development, or worse, risking the process skipping them entirely. Just as we get reports of teaching degree programs that fail to teach how to teach, many business administration programs fail to teach how to get along. And you get bull in a china shop entry-level recruits that take a while to figure out what the game is, much less how to play it.
Connection? Well, a final note. University campuses have become battlegrounds, where the most innocent remark becomes a microaggression, the transgressor is expelled, and he perception of justice is the purpose of the institution. I don't advocate eliminating codes of conduct , but if universities cannot even employ due process and fair play, they are defective. No wonder they are making their student bodies into islands.