ChatGPT makes it easier to cheat, but cheating in that way was always an option, as long as you had enough money to pay someone else to do it for you. So in that sense, all that ChatGPT does is expose the flaws in the system by making this form of cheating available to everybody. I have to wonder why only now this is considered a serious problem that undermines education, but it was mostly ignored when the option was only available to the rich kids.

I think this can only solved by having a clear separation between learning and obtaining the credentials that certify that you possess the knowledge that it is expected of you to do some job. Universities should be centers of learning and students should be writing their essays because they recognize the value that doing so provides to them, not just because they need a certificate issued by the university to apply to the jobs that they desire. The certificate part should come from elsewhere, probably through means that make cheating much harder, such as exams and individual interviews. This would also open the door to other avenues of learning that may be more suited for some people, ie. self-taught people may have more success learning from a book or an online resource than from sitting through several hours of lectures every day.