When Kemi Badenoch, leader of the British opposition, warned recently that too many young people are refusing jobs they consider “beneath them”, her comments were framed as a quarrel about entitlement and labour shortages. But the deeper provocation lay in her plan to cut funding for “poor value degrees” and strengthen apprenticeships – a move that reopened a global debate on the purpose, price and promise of university education in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence. In Nigeria, the echoes landed with a disquieting clarity.