Everyone says AI certs now beat a degree. This settles it — the cost-and-time scorecard, exactly which certs are still alive in 2026 (and which just died), and the build-first order that beats both.

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Everyone online is screaming that a stack of AI certs now beats a $130,000 computer-science degree — and almost nobody finishes the argument. This kit finishes it. THE SCORECARD runs the head-to-head over five rounds: COST (a $40k–$130k degree vs a ~$600 cert stack), TIME (four years before you can prove anything vs a few weeks per cert), WHAT IT PROVES (a degree is durable while certs expire — two of 2026's most-recommended ones literally retired mid-year), DO EMPLOYERS CARE (53% of employers dropped the degree requirement last year, yet at some large firms fewer than 1 in 700 new hires were actually degree-free), and THE CATCH each side hides. The honest verdict: neither the degree nor the cert is the credential — a shipped portfolio is; the paper opens the door, the portfolio gets the offer. Then CERTS STILL ALIVE IN 2026 WITH PRICES — the Claude Certified Architect ($125, tests Claude Code, the Agent SDK, the API and MCP), Google Cloud Professional ML Engineer ($200), AWS ML Engineer – Associate ($150), NVIDIA NCA Generative AI LLMs ($125), Databricks Generative AI Engineer Associate ($200), and Microsoft's new Foundry/agents exam — plus the two that DIED (AWS ML Specialty, last exam March 31 2026; Azure AI-102, retired June 30 2026) so you don't waste a weekend studying a dead cert. Finally THE BUILD-FIRST PLAYBOOK: ship 2–3 real end-to-end projects (your true, free credential), add exactly one certification that maps to your work, and skip the degree-vs-cert war entirely. One targeted cert on top of two real builds beats a degree on cost and time, and a naked cert stack on trust.

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