AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself

December 5, 2025

Empty classroom of desks and chairs

(Current Affairs) – Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

At San Francisco State University, the provost’s office formally notified our union, the California Faculty Association (CFA) of potential layoffs—an announcement that sent shockwaves through campus as faculty tried to reconcile budget cuts with the administration’s AI enthusiasm. The irony was hard to miss: the same month our union received layoff threats, OpenAI’s education evangelists set up shop in the university library to recruit faculty into the gospel of automated learning.

  The math is brutal and the juxtaposition stark: millions for OpenAI while pink slips go out to longtime lecturers. The CSU isn’t investing in education—it’s outsourcing it, paying premium prices for a chatbot many students were already using for free. (Read More)