College, Parents, and AI

Don’t Ask Whether a College Uses AI. Ask This Instead.
Artificial intelligence is changing higher education so quickly that parents and students are
beginning to ask a perfectly reasonable question:
How is this college using AI?
The problem is that the question may be too simple.
After more than three decades teaching college students, one thing I know very well is that
universities are not monolithic institutions. What happens inside a classroom often depends
heavily on the professor.
One instructor may encourage students to use generative AI for brainstorming, research, or
revision. Another may prohibit it on most assignments. A third may allow it but require students
to disclose exactly how it was used.
All three professors may work at the same university.
That means a college can have an impressive institutional AI strategy while students experience
something very different from course to course.
And that raises a much more important question for families considering college:
What does this university believe its graduates should be able to do with — and without
— AI?
Faculty Independence Is Not Necessarily the Problem
Universities have always given professors substantial control over how they teach.
That is often a strength.
The way a professor uses technology in a literature course should not necessarily be identical to
how technology is used in engineering, psychology, business, nursing, or film production.
Different disciplines require different approaches.
So variation between professors is not automatically a warning sign.
The larger issue is whether that independence exists inside a thoughtful institutional framework.
Does the university have expectations for AI literacy?
Are faculty being prepared to teach in an AI-rich environment?
Are students being taught when AI is useful — and when relying on it undermines learning?
Are departments thinking about how AI is changing their professions?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does the university have some idea of what an educated graduate should still be capable
of doing independently?
Those questions matter more than whether a school can say, “Yes, we use AI.”

Almost every institution will soon be able to say that.
Parents Should Ask for Examples
Broad questions tend to produce broad answers.
Ask an admissions representative, “What is your AI strategy?” and you may hear familiar
language about innovation, responsible use, academic integrity, and preparing students for the
future.
None of that is necessarily wrong.
But parents and students should go one step further.
Ask:
Can you give me an example of how students in this major actually use AI?
Or:
Are professors free to establish their own AI policies?
If the answer is yes, an excellent follow-up is:
How does the university make sure every student still graduates with a basic level of AI
literacy?
Parents considering a particular major might also ask:
 How has AI changed coursework in this department?
 Are students learning how to evaluate AI-generated information?
 Are internships and employer partnerships changing because of AI?
 How are professors protecting critical thinking and independent work?
 What skills does the department believe will become more valuable as AI improves?
 What should students in this program be able to do without AI?
These are not hostile questions.
They are the same kinds of questions families already ask about internships, class size,
graduation rates, career placement, or study-abroad opportunities.
AI has simply added another dimension to evaluating the quality of an education.
The Goal Should Not Be to Find the “Most AI” College
There is another trap families should avoid.
More AI does not automatically mean better education.
A university that puts AI into every aspect of student life may not necessarily provide a better
education than a university that deliberately limits AI in certain settings.
Sometimes the educational goal should be efficiency.

Sometimes it should be exploration.
And sometimes the point of an assignment is precisely that the student has to struggle through
the problem personally.
Writing, reasoning, interpreting evidence, forming an argument, making a judgment, and
explaining an idea clearly are not obsolete simply because a machine can assist with them.
In fact, they may become more important.
Students entering college today will probably work alongside increasingly capable AI systems
throughout their careers.
They should know how to use those systems.
But they also need to know when the system is wrong, when its answer is superficial, when its
recommendation is ethically questionable, and when the human being needs to make the
decision.
That requires something deeper than technological fluency.
It requires judgment.
Maybe This Is the Bigger College Question
For years, families evaluating colleges have focused on familiar questions:
What should my child major in?
What jobs will be available?
What is the return on this degree?
Is the university worth the cost?
Those questions still matter.
But AI is forcing another question into the conversation:
What is an education actually supposed to give a young person now?
If information becomes easier to obtain, perhaps education becomes less about accumulating
information and more about learning what to do with it.
If AI can generate an answer, perhaps the student’s job becomes learning how to evaluate that
answer.
If machines can perform more routine intellectual work, perhaps colleges need to place even
greater emphasis on judgment, creativity, communication, curiosity, ethical reasoning, and the
ability to learn independently.
I do not think AI makes college irrelevant.
But I do think it makes choosing the right kind of education more important.
And that begins not with asking whether a university uses AI.

It begins with asking what kind of human being that university is trying to educate.

James Barnard
Barnard Advisory Partners
AI + Higher Education / Parent & Student Advisory
34 years of college teaching experience
For information about private Parent & Student Advisory sessions, parent programs, or school
presentations:
Lauren Seymore
lauren@barnardadvisorypartners.com