Degree in one hand, AI course in the other: College students aren’t waiting for classrooms to catch up with jobs

Bengaluru: College students are increasingly turning to online learning to complement their degrees with practical, industry-relevant skills, as artificial intelligence reshapes the job market and employers seek new skill sets. This is fuelling a surge in demand for upskilling programmes. Edtech platforms such as Coursera, Simplilearn, upGrad and Emeritus are seeing more college students use their platforms to develop skills, particularly in AI, alongside their formal degrees, driven by the rapid evolution of entry-level jobs.

The shift is visible on both sides of the market: students are independently enrolling in courses, while higher education institutions are partnering with edtech companies to provide industry-oriented learning.

Simplilearn has seen a particularly sharp increase in institutional demand. Its enterprise business recorded a 250% year-on-year increase in student-related programmes with colleges and universities as of the end of September. "Colleges have started coming to us proactively and looking for different solutions," Kashyap Dalal, co-founder and chief operating officer, Simplilearn, told ET. "Universities are focusing on special efforts to make their students more employable in line with the changing entry-level job market."


"Till some time ago, in any college that had a few hundred students graduating, 70% of the jobs were in IT services and BPOs (business process outsourcing units). That is drying up," he said, adding that at the same time, an increasing number of AI-linked roles-spanning coding, marketing, analytics and data-are opening up across sectors.

The majority of the demand is coming from self-funded learners. At Simplilearn, 90% of student learners sign up on their own, and the company has seen a 50% year-on-year increase in student enrolments since launching its AI Accelerator programme about six months ago.

On the business-to-business side, the emphasis is shifting from standalone certificates to curriculum integration, practical projects and industry-led programmes. Coursera, which has more than 120 campus partners in India, said around one million learners in the country benefit from its for Campus certifications, accounting for at least three million enrolments. It has also trained more than 100,000 faculty members in the country.

"Industry requirements are changing rapidly as AI transforms sectors, making it difficult for traditional four-year curricula to keep pace. Universities need to bring in micro-credentials and technology-enabled learning to update their curricula and ensure students graduate with the practical, real-time skills that employers are looking for, rather than just theoretical knowledge," said Prashasti Rastogi, director - Coursera for Campus and Coursera for Government, India.

UpGrad is seeing a similar shift toward AI-first learning. Its Skill Shift 2026 study found that students and early-career individuals learn AI primarily from YouTube (51%), personal experimentation (48%) and social media (47%). In contrast, only 25% learn it from their college or university, and just 15% do so through structured courses. Their biggest struggles stem directly from this informal approach: 45% of respondents struggle to choose among too many tools, 37% cannot keep up with the rapid pace of change and 27% find it difficult to distinguish real value from hype.

"Demand is being driven by students looking for a trusted, structured path through the noise - and employability sits underneath all of it. They know it's an AI-first world and they want to be ready for it," said Anuj Vishwakarma, CEO of upGrad, higher education.