It’s no secret that higher education has been a mess for some time now. From DEI initiatives to seemingly never-ending protests to the skyrocketing college debt crisis to the ridiculous ideological imbalance amongst professors, our once hallowed institutions of higher learning are ripe for root-and-stem reform.
But just when it seemed that the American college experience couldn’t become any worse, artificial intelligence came roaring onto the scene. Now, instead of popping Adderall and Ritalin to power through finals like the good old days, college kids are now pawning their assignments off on AI.
This all comes as college professors (many at supposedly prestigious institutions) bemoan that their students either can’t be bothered to read normal college-level assignments or simply can’t because of their limited vocabulary and critical thinking skills. Even professors at notoriously leftist schools have had enough, venting their frustration at any left-of-center outlet that will listen.
These students are supposedly going to college for a particular area of study, meaning they theoretically want to learn about it. Yet they just pass on their assignments on to ChatGPT. How are they supposed to have jobs in STEM, or even subjects like literature, if they can’t even comprehend the material without AI?
If AI is producing all their work in college, isn’t it reasonable to assume that it will continue to be a crutch for them when they become chemists, lawyers, or even teachers themselves? Then the question becomes whether or not the student, given the (non)education he’s received, is worth hiring at all. AI can do it better.
Crib sheets, CliffsNotes, and stimulants are one thing, but relying on a machine to complete even simple assignments, and therefore forgoing any attempt to engage with the material, presents a looming competency crisis. Not only does it pose an existential danger to how our society and economy functions, it poses a threat to the broken diploma pipeline model embodied by today’s higher education system.
The solution to this epidemic seems rather obvious. Students may use AI as a research assistant, no different from Google Scholar, but submission of any assignment or essay that has a single sentence crafted by anything other than the student’s own mind should receive an immediate failing grade as well as a referral for expulsion. Some smaller schools, like my alma mater Washington and Lee University, already have an honor system in place that has the same expectations and penalties.
An even stricter move would be to heavily weight course grades toward in-class tests and essays done with pencil and paper with no devices allowed (besides maybe calculators for STEM classes).
Hellbound and Down 