Can AI Be the Push Higher Ed Needs to Reinvent Itself?
The concern that new technology will undermine learning goes back millennia. It was, after all, Socrates who famously argued that adoption of the written word would lead to forgetfulness, leading to pupils who will “seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with.”
The philosopher’s words will sound familiar to anyone working in higher education in the age of artificial intelligence. Like those in many other industries, colleges and universities have spent much of the past two years scrambling to address the rise of AI. Most of that work has focused on risk mitigation — and given the rapid rise in AI-assisted cheating and concerns about metacognitive laziness among students, it’s understandable that many in higher education see AI as more of a threat than an opportunity.
But higher education may be facing an even more existential threat: Even as educators have focused on how they teach in the age of AI, the more fundamental question may be what they teach. Colleges are still organized around the delivery of content knowledge, which has been available instantly to everyone with a smartphone for a decade, and is only easier to access in the AI era. A recent survey from Jobs for the Future suggests that individuals looking to learn about AI are much more interested in the skills that AI enables — creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking — than in AI itself. These are not new concepts, but they are newly urgent, and they are what’s said to matter most in an AI age.
Some institutions are already taking steps to respond to the rise of AI, such as Ohio State’s effort to integrate AI tools into its curriculum. These are undoubtedly helpful steps in the near term. But they’re not sufficient. Familiarity with AI and the ability to use these tools at a basic level will be quickly outdated, and it won’t be enough to simply offer subscriptions to ChatGPT, Gemini, or other technologies that may be cutting-edge now but will be repeatedly replaced throughout the working life of a graduate. Preparing students for an increasingly complex and technology-driven future will require not only modifying the way institutions operate today but also considering more significant long-term shifts.
One immediate challenge for institutions to address is that, as AI uplevels what every desk worker can do, it is pulling rungs out of the career ladder. The skills required of new employees may resemble those previously held by more senior team members — a challenge for colleges that often rely on entry-level hiring to attract students. California Community Colleges is trying to address this, with a new partnership with Google to provide both access to AI training and hiring commitments for those who complete certain programs.
In the long run, AI may require higher ed to reconceptualize the student life cycle altogether. Over time, the line between education and the world of work will, and should, continue to blur. Colleges should be on the front lines of that effort. Having ongoing relationships with students, well past their initial period on campus, will become integral, as will closer collaboration with industry to help people continue learning while they work. Lifelong learning must become a reality, not just an idea, and colleges should lead the way. Executive education, extension programs, last-mile training, and medical residencies are all models of ongoing learning, sometimes accessed alongside a full-time job.
These ideas aren’t just a nice-to-do for higher education, and they are not just a survival imperative for colleges themselves. Widespread prosperity depends on our colleges and universities’ ability to prepare students to work alongside AI. There is mounting evidence that the white-collar sectors, which tend to employ college graduates, are facing their own disruption from AI, and that more college graduates are experiencing long-term unemployment — leading to record-high levels of skepticism about whether a degree is worth the investment. The best way to combat that perception won’t just be to embrace AI tools that are leading-edge today. It’s time to start saying the quiet part out loud: to explicitly and intentionally teach the skills that students will need to navigate a fast-changing world.
You probably don’t know anyone who can recite The Odyssey (in the original Greek) from memory. Some types of learning, however important historically, can safely go by the wayside. Colleges must take action now to avoid teaching outdated skills and content ill-suited to a modern economy. If they don’t, they may find that AI has caused higher education’s downfall, after all — just not for the reason they expected.
