'At Zoho, no job requires a college degree': Sridhar Vembu backs America’s “no college" trend

Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu said that many American students are skipping college and still getting recruited, urging India to take note.

He even lauded Palantir's 2025 Meritocracy Fellows program, which recruited 22 high school graduates out of 500 applicants for paid tech roles and Western civilisation seminars, bypassing traditional college paths amid rising US tuition costs averaging $36,000 annually.

Sridhar Vembu warns Indians against heavy student debt

In a post on X, Vembu wrote, "Smart American students now skip going to college and forward-thinking employers are enabling them. This is going to be a profound cultural shift."

“This is the real "youth power", enabling young men and women to stand on their own feet, without having to incur heavy debt to get a degree and paying their own way,” he argued. 

“This trend will change the way they view the world and it will change culture and politics,” he added.

Sridhar Vembu urged educated Indian parents, high schoolers, as well as leading companies to stop placing too much emphasis on college degrees.

"At Zoho, no job requires a college degree and if some manager posts a job that requires a degree, they get a polite message from HR to remove the degree requirement!," Vembu shared.

Zoho has enabled a no-degree hiring policy since at least 2013, removing college requirements from job postings, so that a technical team from Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu, with a median age of 19, delivers high-energy contributions that challenge even senior leaders.

He wrote, "In Tenkasi, I closely work with a technical team whose median age is 19. Their energy and can-do spirit is infectious. I have to work hard to keep up with them!"

Smart American students now skip going to college and forward-thinking employers are enabling them. This is going to be a profound cultural shift. This is the real "youth power", enabling young men and women to stand on their own feet, without having to incur heavy debt to get a… https://t.co/qrtuWnCx5n

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) December 3, 2025

Also read: China deploys AI traffic police robot ‘Hangxing-1’ that helps police officers to direct cars & pedestrians by giving verbal reminders (startuppedia.in)