A committee of professors and students spent 5 months studying how AI changed learning on campus, and the findings read like a warning to every university on the planet.
⭕ Study groups are disappearing.
⭕ Office hours are emptying out.
⭕ Problem sets and take-home exams no longer prove anything, because AI can produce credible solutions to almost any written assignment in the undergraduate curriculum.
⭕ Students who lean on chatbots lose mastery and confidence, and some slip into what the report calls cognitive surrender, reaching for AI at the first hint of struggle.
The committee warns MIT professors against replacing undergraduate research assistants with AI agents just because they’re cheaper, because a university exists to grow people, not output.
Ya for those who don’t know MIT banned a number of students from their own graduation for protesting in support of Palestine on campus… This was a HUGE deal among both the student body and many alumni. Unfortunately every US college is beholden to the their endowment, and in MIT’s case the massive endowment isn’t primarily from their own alumni. I wouldn’t say this impacts the quality of research occuring on campus though, with such a large endowment they do a very good job separating the funding from the science.