GEOFF BENNETT: Much of the debate over higher education today centers on cost, career prospects, and whether a college degree can prepare students for a rapidly changing job market.

But in an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, one of the oldest skills taught on college campuses may be more valuable than ever.

Paul Solman reports for the next installment in our higher education series, Rethinking College.

PAUL SOLMAN: Isolated by COVID, bombarded by social media, screen-swamped in general, and headed for an all-bets-are-off job market, no wonder today's students feel, to use a lament from my college days, as if they're up a tree, that is, precariously perched.

Well, most of us remember from college learning to fend for ourselves by making friends outside the safe bubble of home and high school.

But nowadays, with all the job pressure today's students face, is learning to socialize still as crucial?

JILL BARRY, Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst: I think, for me, it is one of the most important aspects, because when you're in college, you're meeting all these people of different backgrounds and you want to be able to use that knowledge once you graduate into a job.

PAUL SOLMAN: Is it the single most important aspect of college, learning to live on your own, be with other people?

KOSI CHUGBO-JUNIUS, Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst: Yes, I think it is like the single most important.

I think whether you're an engineer, whether you're a science person, business, anything, that's the one thing I think all -- any job you're looking for, anything you want to do beyond here is going to have in common.

You're going to have to work with people.

PAUL SOLMAN: For better or worse.

KOSI CHUGBO-JUNIUS: For better or worse.

(LAUGHTER) PAUL SOLMAN: We started this story last spring at Michigan universities, where the emphasis from the top was crystal clear, not so much socializing as reorienting college to get students jobs.

BRENDAN KELLY, President, Eastern Michigan University: It's not about courses and credit hours anymore.

And that's been our model for the last 100 years.

PAUL SOLMAN: Eastern Michigan University President Brendan Kelly.

BRENDAN KELLY: We have to understand that our business is rooted in the student, and then has to be connected to their participation in the economy after graduation.

PAUL SOLMAN: Job readiness is equally top of mind for Michigan State President Kevin Guskiewicz.

KEVIN GUSKIEWICZ, President, Michigan State University: We have got a ranking recently two years in a row as top 10 among all publics for employability.

That's a metric that we're proud of and one that we advertise proudly.

PAUL SOLMAN: But when we talk to students, they emphasize something different.

REILLY COON, Michigan State Graduate Student: I come from a rural community in Northern Wisconsin, and so going to college for me was the first exposure I'd had to new ideas, new people.

It was the most diverse environment I was ever in.

PAUL SOLMAN: Michigan State grad student Reilly Coon got her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin.

REILLY COON: I'm sure three years from now I won't remember every single thing or every reading, but the skills gained from that are I think essential for going out into the world and have definitely made me a more holistic human being and just helped me develop as a person.

ITZEL SEGOVIA, Michigan State Alumna: I came from Texas.

And it's a very big Latino community, so when I came here, it was, like, very diverse.

PAUL SOLMAN: We heard the same thing from new MSU Itzel Segovia.

ITZEL SEGOVIA: So I met people from all different backgrounds, and I will catch myself, like, on a Tuesday morning eating pho because of the friend that I made, and she's from Vietnam.

So I think that it's essential to create those relationships in college, because that's one thing that will go with you through life.

PAUL SOLMAN: And we didn't just hear it in Michigan; 800 miles east at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, same story.

KOSI CHUGBO-JUNIUS: I came here, I didn't know a single person.

PAUL SOLMAN: Senior Kosi Chugbo-Junius.

KOSI CHUGBO-JUNIUS: Everything I have here, every resource I lean on is someone that I had to form like a social connection with.

Like, I rely on that every day.

PAUL SOLMAN: Seniors Jill Barry and Ben Luu.

JILL BARRY: When you're in college, you kind of develop a sense of self and you become more yourself, and you know how to communicate with people, and you're more confident in who you are.

PAUL SOLMAN: When you first came here, how freaked out were you about, say, meeting other kids or meeting girls?

BEN LUU, Student, University of Massachusetts Amherst: Oh, I would say it was intimidating.

But, as you get along, it gets easier.

Like, now I'm an R.A.

on campus, so I live in with a bunch of kids, and so it kind of builds on you.

Like, when -- if you were to ask me in freshman year if I were to ever be an R.A., like, I would have never even dreamt of it.

But as... PAUL SOLMAN: Would you have talked to me when you were a freshman if I came to you at a table?

BEN LUU: Probably not.

I would probably run away or something.

I was a very shy kid in high school.

PAUL SOLMAN: Shy, isolated.

So many higher ed students these days actually report feeling lonely.

BETSY CRACCO, University of Massachusetts Amherst: We start to see the erosion of social skills because people are spending so much time in virtual world.

So when they come to campus, it might be the first time they're really immersed in a community.

PAUL SOLMAN: Betsy Cracco runs the student well-being initiative at UMass Amherst.

More of a challenge now than it was?

BETSY CRACCO: More of a challenge now than it was.

We started looking at loneliness as an outcome measure.

In 2023, about 54 percent of the students here and higher than that nationally reported being lonely.

We were able to get that down to about 42 percent, which is lower than the national average.

PAUL SOLMAN: But 42 percent, that's four out of 10 kids who are walking by here now.

BETSY CRACCO: Not wrong.

After the pandemic, we saw scores in social anxiety really peak, and they have started to taper back down.

Students are really craving opportunities to be in person with each other.

They're looking for sort of structured and scaffolded opportunities.

This is the playdate generation.

PAUL SOLMAN: What does that mean?

BETSY CRACCO: For a lot of these young people, they were not told to go out and come back when the lights go -- turn back on, on the street, right, that, you know, when we were younger, perhaps go outside, and play and come back.

PAUL SOLMAN: UMass has created what it calls scaffolding for students to interact with one another, often in phone- and screen-free ways, bonfires, climbing events, even a glow light dance party.

The goal, says Christopher Blakely, head of student engagement at UMass: CHRISTOPHER BLAKELY, University of Massachusetts Amherst: Our desire is that we design a campus where every student is known.

PAUL SOLMAN: But there are 20,000 students here.

How could you?

CHRISTOPHER BLAKELY: And that's a challenge for us.

So our design is that every student is known.

They're not known by everybody, but they're known by somebody, so that we build a student engagement model where it's reciprocal, that we're not asking students to engage just with us, but we're engaging with the students.

PAUL SOLMAN: So in an era where getting a job is iffier than ever, schools like UMass and Michigan State and Eastern Michigan have been forced to realize that soft skills are required, both for a non-lonely offline life and for a shape-changing work force.

LAURA LEE MCINTYRE, Provost, Michigan State University: Campuses are a place where young people learn to become adults.

PAUL SOLMAN: Michigan State University Provost Laura Lee McIntyre.

LAURA LEE MCINTYRE: Over a span of four years, they're managing their schedules.

They're managing their social commitments.

They're managing their appointments with their advisers and their faculty.

They are managing their workload.

PAUL SOLMAN: And the soft skills that may well, in the era of AI, be the work skills of the future.

LAURA LEE MCINTYRE: There's something unique about the conditions under which college campuses are intentional about student well-being in the classroom, but beyond.

That preparation prepares our students, who are young adults, to transition into the world of work and life.

PAUL SOLMAN: And so, yes, kids up a tree, but socializing.

For the "PBS News Hour," Paul Solman in Amherst, Massachusetts.