Renowned economist explains why you should go back to study after 30 and names the most in-demand competencies

Dzmitry Kruk. Photo here and below: "Nasha Niva"

The labor market is changing faster than university programs can update. Artificial intelligence is taking over routine tasks. Companies are looking not just for executors, but for people who can think, adapt, work with uncertainty, and restructure processes. And those who already have experience but suddenly face a "ceiling" feel this particularly acutely.

We spoke with Dzmitry Kruk, director of the BISEB School of Economics and Business and an economist, about why education today is not "once and for all," what a person loses when they stop learning, and why being 30+ can be a competitive advantage, not a weakness.

"At 30, people often better understand why they need to study"

— Today, skills in many areas quickly become obsolete. The fact that a person received an education at 22 does not mean that at 35 they will remain a competitive professional. What is the shelf life of education? Why does a diploma obtained in youth no longer guarantee professional stability?

— This is a problem of education itself and its inadequate quality. The fact that the world has changed and that mass production of specialists who can perform tasks from "A" to "Z" but are unable to deviate, look broader, and adapt to new conditions – an outdated model – became evident not today.

For example, back in 2013, when one of the official Bologna documents was adopted, a thought served as a kind of epigraph: what matters is not so much how you studied, what you did to get a diploma, but what you can do, how you can develop and learn after obtaining it.

In this sense, quality education should not simply give a person a set of knowledge. It should shape them and enable them to develop in the future. And if we look at the best universities in the world, they certainly correspond to this trend.

Another matter is that many countries and many universities have been slow with this reaction. They still remain at the level of what can be called second-generation universities.

A third-generation university, in turn, focuses on the qualities of graduates that allow them to be in demand on the labor market. This is the ability to change quickly, adapt to changing market conditions, to new employer requirements, to other contexts.

But a very important caveat here: this does not mean that fundamental knowledge is no longer needed.

If we say that fundamental things — a broad understanding of context, an understanding of how the industry develops, an understanding of interconnections — are receding into the background, and now we only need to know how to switch between Claude and ChatGPT, this will also be a great oversimplification.

Modern education must combine several things. Firstly, the acquisition of fundamental knowledge. Secondly, broad competencies and contextual understanding. Thirdly, the ability to adapt to change. There's a good English word — agility. This ability to quickly react to changes without losing depth of understanding is, in my opinion, one of the main valuable features of the modern approach to education in leading universities.

Павялічыць

— Many people after 30 have internal resistance: it seems that by this age, a person should already be "established": have a profession, status, stable income. Returning to study can be perceived as a step backward. Why does this logic not work in the modern economic situation? Why should one go to study after 30?

— Because human activity is largely about making decisions in conditions of uncertainty.

Artificial intelligence can work excellently if you've given it all the inputs. But if we have many unknowns, if a decision needs to be made in a complex situation, the answer still remains with the human.

Today, the degree of uncertainty in the world is only increasing. We are living in a period of implementation of General Purpose Technology, and artificial intelligence penetrates almost all spheres of life. But no one yet knows exactly how this will change the labor market, business, and daily professions.

If a person looks at the world through old lenses, they may simply miss new trends. And here, education is needed not as "another certificate," but as a way to step outside their usual bubble. And that same agility, which I mentioned, becomes inaccessible to them.

— How can a person over 30 gain this ability to see wider and adapt to new trends?

— Firstly, through networking with colleagues, when a person steps outside their usual bubble.

Secondly, through encountering an academic environment. A third-generation university creates a platform for new ideas, including for businesspeople. It provides an opportunity for people with different experiences, different professional trajectories, and different problems to meet and look at their issues from a different angle.

This is very important, because an adult often has rich experience, but this experience can be confined to one context. And the educational environment allows this context to be expanded.

— If we compare a person 30+ and a young university graduate, what advantages does the former have?

— First and foremost — motivation.

With age, the level of self-awareness of what you are doing and why you are doing it, in my opinion, reaches a certain maximum closer to 30. At 20-25, a person is often still choosing, searching for themselves, not fully understanding what they need and in which direction they want to move.

An employer, as a rule, prefers to deal with a professional who clearly knows what they want.

The second thing is very trivial but no less important – experience. No AI can replace experience. A person over 30 has physically experienced more situations where decisions had to be made under uncertainty. They have already done something, made mistakes, corrected consequences, worked with people, survived crises. This is their main advantage.

By the way, if you look at statistics for European countries, the segment up to 28 years old has the highest unemployment rate. Employers often prefer to hire people closer to 30, as they are already more formed as professionals.

People over 30 have certain advantages — provided they can bridge the gap between themselves and younger people in terms of agility and new technologies, including AI skills.

For the younger generation, this skill is often already embedded: they are "digital natives." But thanks to motivation, people over 30 can catch up. And then their experience begins to work together with new skills.

Павялічыць

There's another interesting point. Some employers want to see young employees in the team to better understand the behavioral patterns of the new generation: how they consume goods, how they make decisions, how they communicate. But having a 30+ representative in the team who understands both sides – both the more traditional logic and new behavioral models – is strategically important.

"We often calculate how much education costs. But we don't calculate how much not having it costs"

— Sometimes a person is a good specialist, has experience, works well, but no longer grows – neither in salary, nor in position, nor in opportunities. How to understand the reason for a "career ceiling" and how to break through it?

— Such a ceiling can arise for various reasons. Sometimes it's about personal competencies. A person as a specialist has reached a certain level, but for further growth, they lack new skills, a new vision, a different way of working.

And sometimes the problem is not with the person personally, but with the industry in which they work. The field itself can reach its ceiling: it no longer grows, does not offer previous opportunities, does not create new trajectories. And then the person hits not their personal limit, but the market's limit.

If the problem is in the industry, there can only be one solution — move to another field. This is a natural economic process. But if a person cannot transfer their skills to a new industry, they need retraining. And this already requires education.

If it's about a personal ceiling, it's important to understand which competencies you're lacking. Perhaps you haven't become worse than your yesterday's self. But the world has moved forward, and you no longer meet the new criteria.

In such a situation, the answer is again related to education — and to the opportunity to look at yourself from a different perspective.

The market expects a different level of analytical thinking, technological flexibility, the ability to work with new tools, build processes, and communicate in a different context.

And if you don't change with these criteria, you start to fall behind — even if within your old system you still appear to be a strong specialist.

— We usually calculate well how much an educational course or program costs. But much less often do we calculate how much the decision not to study costs. What does a person potentially lose – in salary, career, opportunities – if they stick with an old set of skills?

— There is a huge amount of research that shows a positive return on education.

The more educated you are, the more you earn. This is practically an axiom of modern economics.

But it's not just that you have an education as a formal fact. It's important whether this education matches today's market.

If yesterday your education was considered brilliant, and today the world has moved forward, its return begins to decline, especially compared to those who continued to develop.

Salaries in top groups are growing at faster rates. Roughly speaking, the average salary might increase by 3% per year, while in the premium segment, it could be 10%-20%.

That is, a person loses not only quantitatively, not just a certain sum of money. They lose qualitatively: they gradually shift to a different professional cluster. Refusing education can mean that a person falls out of the group where the fastest growth is occurring.

And this is not always immediately noticeable.

Павялічыць

— Listening to you, I recall Detroit's bankruptcy — as an example of what can happen to a city and economy that cling too long to one industry. There's another illustrative case – the Japanese company Toto. It's known primarily for its "smart" toilets, but its ceramic components proved to be in demand for semiconductor manufacturing, and thus for AI infrastructure. As a result, the company managed to leverage a new technological trend and sharply strengthen its position. At the individual level, this works similarly.

— I, in turn, will give examples of adaptation from the stock market.

One of them is Bloom Energy. This is an American company engaged in new energy solutions. It managed to capitalize on the demand for new energy carriers and, over a relatively short period – about a year and a half – showed very strong capitalization growth.

The second example is Palantir Technologies (to which many have ambiguous attitudes, but from a business perspective, it is, at a minimum, worthy of attention). This is a company that effectively created a new market segment at the intersection of military technologies, analytics, and data work.

In both cases, it's important to understand: this is not just luck. This is the result of a well-thought-out strategy and advanced competencies. It's the ability to see demand that is just forming, to understand how it will develop, and to be in the right place with the right set of solutions.

Such examples clearly show: adaptation is not just the ability to "follow trends." It is the ability to see structural changes and timely restructure one's strategy accordingly.

"The most valuable are those who can restructure processes"

— In recent years, companies have experienced a pandemic, war, sanctions, relocation, the rise of AI, changes in customer behavior, and sales channels. This has changed not only markets but also expectations of employees. How has business demand for people changed? Who is considered the most valuable specialist today, and what skills are coming to the forefront?

— If you look at the World Economic Forum's "The Future of Jobs" research, it clearly shows:

routine skills are increasingly less valued. AI can replace them more and more often.

Today, among the most in-demand skills are analytical thinking, critical thinking, and creativity.

But there's another layer that, in my opinion, is becoming extremely important. I call them architectural skills. This is the ability to see not just one's individual function, but the connections between different work processes – and to understand how these processes can be restructured.

For example, there is a marketer. They see that AI can take over part of their functions. And they have two paths. The first is to defend the old role and pretend nothing has changed. The second is to re-evaluate and restructure the process themselves to use AI as a tool and increase the company's productivity.

If a person understands how marketing, sales, analytics, communication, and customer relations are connected and can reconfigure this process, they become very valuable.

Today, it's not just someone who performs their function well who is valuable. It's someone who sees the system and understands how it can be restructured in new conditions.

— Today in education, there are two poles: on one hand, superficial marathons promising golden mountains, on the other – long fundamental programs. Your BISEB school offers practice-oriented intensives of 12-18 hours, as well as MBA for those who need a more systemic level. Why can the format of short intensives be especially useful for adults and businesses?

Павялічыць

— Many people don't have time for long-term learning due to daily "churn." They have work, business, family, other responsibilities. But that doesn't mean they don't need development.

As one of the options, we offer an alternative mechanism that allows a person to look at individual areas from a new perspective, gain practical tools, and network.

Such courses can be seen as an addition or an entry point to broader programs, like an MBA, or as preparation for them. But they also have intrinsic value: they help people not "ossify," not get stuck in familiar approaches, and timely see what has already changed around them.

For example, courses on public speaking, project management, crisis communications — these are what people and companies want to see here and now. These are not abstract knowledge for the distant future, but skills that can be quickly applied in work or business.

The benefit is that participants work not only with theory but also with real cases. These can be their own projects or realistic situations very close to what they encounter in their work.

Live interaction is also important. People learn not only from the instructor but also from each other: through discussions, questions, examples from their own experience.

And the short, intensive format itself allows quickly delving into a topic, gaining new frameworks of thinking, and understanding where to move next.

— When does a person need a fundamental MBA program, rather than just a short course?

— When a person encounters a "ceiling" — industrial or personal.

A short course is suitable when you need to improve a specific skill, look at a particular area from a new perspective, or get a practical tool.

An MBA is needed when a person understands that for further growth, they need to systematically build competencies. When they want to move higher not only within their function but also to understand business as a holistic system.

Our General MBA program is for middle and senior management who want to build competencies and push this ceiling higher.

This is also important for Belarusians who find themselves in new conditions. A different country means different patterns, different business rules, different communication. To work with international business, you need to speak its language.

Павялічыць

— A large amount of knowledge is now available online: lectures, videos, books, AI tools. What is the advantage of offline learning?

— First and foremost, it's the network.

Students often underestimate what they can gain from each other. A university is not a place where a lecturer brings some secret knowledge. It's a process of joint creativity and searching for new things.

It's very important to have people next to you with different experiences, different questions, different professional histories. Sometimes the value of education is not only in what the lecturer said, but in what discussion it triggered within the group.

Online can be convenient, but it often dulls some cognitive skills. And live interaction helps to "stay sharp" — thanks in part to the experience of colleagues.

This is especially important for Belarusians in emigration. When a person finds themselves in another country, it's important not to get stuck in their own bubble. The educational space can become a place where they see different business practices, different ways of communication, different approaches to management.

This doesn't happen instantly. But it's one of the steps that helps to integrate into the international business environment.

— Recently, EHU, of which your school is a part, was recognized as an "extremist organization" in Belarus. How has this affected students, and what safety measures do you offer?

— I cannot speak on behalf of the entire university, only for my structural unit.

The official position of the university is that this decision is not recognized as lawful in the EU and Lithuania, our diplomas are recognized in Europe and provide a career start. But regarding Belarus — yes, a certain danger exists for people inside the country, this is our reality. And this is indeed an important topic.

The rector and official representatives have spoken about the measures being taken to protect university students. For my part, I can only wish that these measures are visualized and bear fruit: so that students see guarantees for the future and understand exactly how the university works with existing risks.

Павялічыць

— Name three reasons to invest in your education in 2026.

— And not just in 2026, but in any year.

First: education has always been and remains one of the best investments with the highest return.

Second: in the era of AI implementation, it's very important not to become stagnant and to remain competitive. The world will change, and people must have the ability to change with it.

Third: for Belarusians outside the country, education is one of the best ways to integrate into the international business environment and not get trapped in a ghetto.

Studying after 30 is not a sign that a person "didn't make it" or "fell behind." On the contrary, it's a normal strategy for a person who sees that the world is changing and doesn't want to stand still.

Modern education is no longer about a diploma in a frame. It's about the ability to constantly re-understand what's happening around you, where your strengths are, what you lack, and how to stay in the future that has already begun.

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