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AI in Higher Ed Will Come Slowly, Until All of a Sudden!

Higher education is, by nature, very slow to change. So it is with embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI). Yet, when it finally comes, the changes will come in an avalanche.

In discussions with faculty and staff, I have encountered some reluctance to take AI seriously. Often, they scoff when I suggest that significant changes are coming that will impact their jobs. Large scale integration will take about two years of careful consideration, planning and preparation. Meanwhile enrollments will decline, revenues will drop and a range of forms of competition will ramp-up. Then, likely in 2027-28, major changes will come all of a sudden to many universities. The changes will not be uniform across institutions, but they will be pervasive, impacting policies, practices and people.

Let’s look at some of the key factors that will prompt changes. Perhaps the overriding factor is the decline in the perceived value of college degrees. In an increasingly difficult economy, this perception is plummeting. NBC News released the results of a nationwide poll on November 28, 2025:

Americans have grown sour on one of the longtime key ingredients of the American dream. Almost two-thirds of registered voters say that a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost, according to a new NBC News poll, a dramatic decline over the last decade. Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is “worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime,” while 63% agree more with the concept that it’s “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.” …. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy – which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI.

With only one-third of the American public believing college is worth the investment, it is becoming increasingly difficult to convince families to take on the debt that is incurred by most in the process of completing a college degree. The NBC report goes on to note that the cost of tuition has risen far faster than inflation over the same period of time: “While there have been some small declines in tuition prices over the last decade, when adjusted for inflation, College Board data shows that the average, inflation-adjusted cost of public four-year college tuition for in-state students has doubled since 1995. Tuition at private, four-year colleges is up 75% over the same period. Poll respondents who spoke with NBC News all emphasized those rising costs as a major reason why the value of a four-year degree has been undercut.”

Another factor to consider is the change in federal policy regarding international students. One of the more lucrative revenue streams at public universities comes from international students. Their tuition rates can be three times that of an in-state student. Recently federal policies have put significant restrictions on international students. In addition, international public opinion of safety and security in America seems to have declined. Nathan M. Greenfield writes in World University News that these policy changes have prompted a drop in international students in American universities this fall.

In this year’s Global Enrolment Benchmark Survey (GEBS), American colleges reported a 6% decline in international undergraduates, erasing the 6% increase in the 2024 GEBS. The 19% decline in masters students, by far the largest category of international students in the country, enrolled in the 201 American universities reporting, was more than three times the size of last year’s decline. Canadian numbers can be compared to a snowball going downhill. After last year’s decline of 27% for undergraduates reported in last year’s GEBS, Canadian universities reported a further 36% decline, making a cumulative decline since 2023 of 53%. The 35% decline in international graduate students follows on last year’s reported decline of 30%.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of smaller colleges and universities are closing their doors due to financial crises. With smaller enrollments, they are more vulnerable to more modest factors such as the “Demographic Cliff” that is to affect the number of high school graduates over the next few years. Robert Kelchen, Dubravka Ritter and Douglas Webber, writing in Education Next report on increasing college closures:

While some of the estimated increases [of closures] might seem small at the national level, they would be significant for the handful of localities predicted to experience college closures in a given year. It is important to reiterate that most institutions that close are somewhat smaller than average, with the median closed school enrolling a student body of about 1,389 full-time equivalent students several years prior to closure. That said, for institutions located in small towns, these colleges are still one of the largest employers in the region. This means that many (if not all) of these additional predicted closures are likely to be at the sorts of local institutions that are significant economic engines and act as community anchors.

Nic Mitchell, who writes often for University World News, addresses the topic of the impact of AI on university faculty and staff positions. In his article “AI is coming for your work, expert warns university staff” Mitchell digs into the ways in which AI may be able to perform better and more efficiently than humans:

With management consultants predicting that up to one-third of work done today will be automated in the next five years – and universities under pressure to cut costs and do more with less – artificial intelligence offers a cheaper and more efficient way to keep higher education institutions running smoothly, claims an international higher education strategy expert. Instead of trying to fight to protect traditional roles and jobs, Dr Ant Bagshaw, deputy chief executive of the Australian Public Policy Institute in Canberra, Australia, urges universities to embrace the unstoppable march of generative AI and accept that it is “more harmful to keep people in jobs that could be done better by robots”. In his chapter in the new HEPI report, Bagshaw cited research by McKinsey, the international strategy and management consultants, which claimed that 30% of hours worked today could be automated by 2030…. Roles likely to see the biggest productivity gains, according to McKinsey’s research, include professionals in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and education and workforce training, closely followed by creatives and arts management, and business and legal professionals and managers.

Lest you think this premise that AI will overtake humans in performing university faculty and staff roles is newly constructed in the current fervor of a small handful of AI enthusiasts, NAXN – also known as Nic Newman – writes in Medium that teaching and learning will soon be transformed at universities:

Robots will replace teachers by 2027. That’s the bold claim British education expert Anthony Seldon made in 2018. He may have been the first to put a date on it, but plenty of others are doubling down on the principle, such as Bill Gates, who believes that AI-powered chatbots will become as good as any human tutor, and Khan Academy’s founder Sal Khan, who opened his 2023 Ted Talk by arguing ‘we’re at the cusp of using AI for probably the biggest positive transformation that education has ever seen’. When ChatGPT made its public debut two years ago, the CEO of OpenAI predicted that it ‘will eclipse the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the Internet revolution all put together’.

To those who hold the belief that the professoriate and associated support positions are untouchable, I urge you to carefully follow the news and trends in both higher education and AI. It is not that AI is slow, rather it’s that we humans in higher education are slow. The infrastructure, policy, personnel and budget discussions are slow, giving us a false sense of security in our positions. However, the steady erosion of value perception and the rise in less expensive competition from multiple quarters, will continue to mount to a tipping point at which the whole system will transition very rapidly. Reduced cost and personalization will create marketplace advantages for those who are agile. Some colleges will close their doors due to dropping enrollments and revenue; others will cut faculty and staff to remain tuition competitive. The question for every professor isn’t “Will AI impact my career?” Rather, “Will I have the required skills before the system is forced to change around me in 2027-28?” What are you doing to prepare your department and yourself for the tipping point?

 

This column was originally published in Inside Higher Ed.