AI and the changing nature of universities

The Changing Nature of Universities and Its Impact on Society in an AI Age

As AI technologies transform society, one domain being profoundly impacted is higher education. Universities face growing questions about their value proposition and model as AI reshapes how we teach, learn, work, and live. These disruptive forces compound deeper systemic issues in higher education that have been worsening for decades. The combined effect is a landscape of increasingly unaffordable, detached, and ineffective universities that fail to fulfil their mission of cultivating knowledge and empowering individuals.

This evolving crisis, intertwined with the rise of AI, has critical implications for students, graduates, employers, and society as a whole. We must reimagine and rebuild our educational institutions in an AI age to restore their value. This requires harnessing AI intelligently to make learning accessible and effective while connecting students meaningfully to evolving career landscapes. With vision and ethics, AI can help universities rediscover their purpose.

The traditional perception of universities was as hallowed centres of scholarship and incubators of talent. A university degree conveyed distinction, signalling one’s intellectual aptitude, diligence, and potential. However, as corporatisation has reoriented universities and AI transforms skill demands, the practical utility of university credentials is declining. This complex phenomenon requires analysis through multiple lenses.

The Commercialisation of Universities

A major driver of how universities have changed is the focus on revenue growth and profitability. Where universities were once thought of as public goods operating for the advancement of knowledge, they now are run more like corporations concerned with their bottom line. This has significantly affected how resources are allocated. Budgets for administrative bloat, marketing, and lavish amenities like recreation centres and stadiums have swelled, while instruction and educational quality are increasingly short-changed.

Reports suggest that between 1999 and 2019 in the United States, the number of admin staff grew by over 60% while full-time faculty increased by less than 25%. This implies that Universities now spend more on overhead than actual teaching. This diversion of resources away from academics and scholarship comes at the expense of students and the integrity of degrees.

The impact is substantial increases in tuition that saddle students with debt. Over the past 20 years, the cost of university has risen 2 to 3 times the rate of inflation across OECD countries. In the United States, over $1.5 trillion is now owed in student debt. Rather than engines of research and empowerment, universities have become big business, capitalising on demand for credentials.

Consequences for Students and Society

The combination of declining educational quality and skyrocketing costs is detrimental for students and youth looking to complete their higher education. Students take on massive debt burdens with the expectation a degree will boost their social mobility and career prospects. However, degree inflation has led to credential escalation, making it harder for graduates to differentiate themselves. They bear the financial downsides of attending university but diminishing upside.

This has profound psychological impacts on young people who were told a degree was the ticket to a successful life, only to find it no longer confers the advantages it once did. Many graduates emerge demoralised and constrained by the debts they accrued in the process. This “diploma mill” system has far-reaching societal effects, eroding the meritocratic promise of higher education and entrenching inequality.

At a broader level, universities’ focus on revenue extraction over scholarly aims has led them astray from their mission of advancing knowledge for societal good. The social perception of universities as spaces of intellectual enlightenment is increasingly misaligned with the reality of cookie-cutter curricula, grade inflation, and lax standards. This threatens to delegitimise university credentials.

Shifting Employer Perspectives

Alongside the degradation of educational quality, employers are viewing university degrees with more scepticism. A bachelor’s degree alone no longer signals standout talent. Hiring managers lament skill gaps between graduates’ qualifications and organisational needs. ?Businesses increasingly screen candidates based on skills proficiency and experience rather than academic credentials alone. Job postings requiring a degree are declining. Degrees are still preferred, but often as a baseline rather than differentiator.??This amounts to a precarious devaluation of university education in the labour market. As degree relevance falls, so does their ability to shore up graduates’ career prospects and earning potential. Students expected a high return for their educational investment, but shifting employer attitudes are eroding the certainty of this payoff.

Life Stresses and Mental Health

The dynamics outlined above coalesce to create a perfect storm of stressors facing today’s students. Attempting to navigate work and life prospects in a systemically more difficult job market leads to immense pressure. A perceived “failure to launch” due to employment struggles or feeling adrift career-wise can be psychologically damaging.

Compounding this is the specter of debt hanging over graduates. Loans that felt like investments suddenly feel like financial albatrosses when the lucrative jobs needed to repay them fail to materialise. This leaves young adults stressed, demotivated, and emotionally distraught from their post-graduation plight – an epidemic of despair.? Rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicide are rising among university students. It is apparent today’s higher education regime is not sufficiently promoting individual and social well-being.

The Role of AI

Society is in the midst of a technological transformation catalyzed by AI and automation. AI refers to systems that can perform tasks requiring human-like cognition such as recognising patterns, understanding language, or making decisions. AI is accelerating automation of certain jobs and workplace tasks, necessitating a reconfiguration of skills.

This has major implications for education and work. AI can supplement or replace some traditional teaching and evaluation methods via personalised and adaptive learning platforms. University administrators deploy AI systems to track students and plan resource allocation. AI also affects the job market by automating routine work, changing employer needs, and demanding new technology-fluent capabilities.

These AI impacts generate anxiety but also opportunities. AI can help customize and enhance education while preparing individuals for evolving workplace dynamics. Constructively integrating AI into society and strategically adapting education systems will be crucial for taking advantage of AI’s dividends and mitigating its risks.

Harnessing AI Positively in Education

AI has salient potential to improve access to high-quality, affordable education – realising the promises universities are failing to deliver. The key will be deploying AI responsibly and aligning technology with humanistic educational values.

One opportunity is using AI to cut overhead costs at universities by automating burdensome administrative processes. This could redirect resources toward enriching teaching and research. AI academic assistants can help faculty customise curriculum and provide adaptive learning support tailored to students’ needs. This humanises education in a way expansive lecture-style courses cannot.

AI also enables scalable virtual learning outside traditional institutions. MOOCs (massive open online courses) increase access for non-traditional students. AI tutors create personalised learning plans addressing individual skills gaps. Education integrated with work experience prepares learners for the contemporary job landscape.

The greatest payoff comes from partnering AI systems with human teachers and domain experts. AI is a tool to supplement – not replace – compassionate, relationship-based learning. Used thoughtfully, AI can counter higher education’s overcommercialisation.

AI and the Changing Job Market

Higher education must keep pace with the evolving workplace in the AI age. Most occupations now require some digital fluency, but university programs often lack integrated technology training. Curricula should instruct both field-specific knowledge and transferable capabilities like data literacy and problem-solving.

Career guidance leveraging AI could help match students with academic programs linked to in-demand roles. Mentorship networks can connect students to professionals for advice on navigating their field. AI platforms provide alternative development channels outside university through project-based learning.

AI will necessitate ongoing adaptation. Learning technical skills should be complemented with less automatable ones like creativity, collaboration, and communication. A mindset of lifelong learning will be crucial as AI shapes career trajectories in unpredictable ways.

Collaboration for Systemic Change

Tackling the complex challenges facing higher education requires collaboration among diverse stakeholders. Educational institutions, governments, and industry each have roles in aligning the system to the AI economy and restoring universities’ value.

Potential solutions requiring joint efforts include:

• Creating public-private partnerships between universities, agencies, and companies to shape curricula and research around needed skills. Industry experts can help co-develop programs.
• Increasing need-based financial aid and incentives for universities to reduce administrative waste. This can enhance access and affordability.
• Expanding work-integrated learning like co-ops, internships, and apprenticeships to provide practical experience.
• Establishing training programs to reskill displaced workers into newly created AI/automation roles.
• Enacting more effective and equitable income-based repayment policies and debt forgiveness to ease student debt burdens. Companies can offer repayment support as an employee benefit.
• Leveraging AI advising systems to provide personalised career guidance tailored to evolving opportunities.
• Increasing mental health and career counselling services through partnerships between providers, universities, and community groups.

Joining forces in these ways can reconnect higher education to the public good. Governments must recommit funding to core university functions rather than amenities, directing resources toward high-quality, affordable education for all. Outcomes-based financing models can incentivise measurable learning over credentialing.

Industry should view the talent pipeline as a shared responsibility. Rather than just consuming talent, employers must actively nurture it through on-the-job training and clearly signaling skill needs to educators. Technology firms specifically have an obligation to ensure AI is deployed equitably in learning.

Institutions themselves must embrace reforms – reduced bureaucracy, modernised curriculum, and student supports. Tenure and admissions policies should value teaching excellence and diversity. Administrators, faculty, and students should collectively determine reforms, not private investors.

At an individual level, students need guidance in assessing opportunities pragmatically rather than pursuing credentials blindly. There are diverse paths to social contribution and fulfillment. Self-directed, lifelong learning will become more crucial as careers change.

AI can be an asset in these transformations if guided by an ethic of cooperatively advancing education. But technology alone cannot overcome alignment issues. Human relationships and understanding must be centered. By pooling insights and resources, stakeholders can restore higher education as a means to knowledge, enrichment and social mobility. But it requires commitment to inclusive, democratic values – not profit – as organising principles.

Through comprehensive partnerships and reimagination, the promise of higher education can be revitalized in the AI age. The existential pressures on universities demand bold action. Collaboration is key to nurturing people-centred learning ecosystems. If anchors of civilisation like universities further drift from their role as beacons of light, we risk social instability. Reviving higher education’s purpose is thus an urgent priority.

The commercialisation of higher education has led universities astray from their fundamental purpose. Students are treated as revenue sources as institutions chase rankings and luxury. This has hugely inflated costs and student debt while eroding actual learning. Degrees’ declining practical payoff leaves graduates feeling frustrated and financially trapped.

These systemic issues require thoughtful solutions. AI presents opportunities to re-center humanistic educational values and prepare youth for the evolving job landscape. But technology alone is not the panacea. Renewing higher education requires reconnecting universities to their public interest mission. If learning – not profiteering – can become the incentive, universities may produce socially beneficial knowledge rather than credentials of dubious worth.

Through comprehensive collaboration, creative policymaking, and reimagination, higher education’s value proposition can be restored in the era of AI.

First published on Curam