Growing share of Americans say the U.S. higher education system is headed in the wrong direction - Pew Research

In the new survey, majorities across all major demographic groups share the view that the U.S. higher education system is going in the wrong direction. But some groups are more likely than others to say this. For example, adults who have a four-year college degree are somewhat more likely than those without a college degree to express this view (74% vs. 69%). A line chart showing that views of higher education have turned more negative in both parties. Similarly, 77% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the higher education system is going in the wrong direction, compared with a smaller majority (65%) of Democrats and Democratic leaners. In both parties, these shares have gone up by at least 10 percentage points since 2020 – and the gap between Republicans and Democrats has narrowed.

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/10/15/growing-share-of-americans-say-the-us-higher-education-system-is-headed-in-the-wrong-direction/

‘Urgent need’ for more AI literacy in higher education, report says - Anna McKie, Research Professional News

There is an “urgent need” to improve AI literacy among both staff and students at British universities, according to a report from the Higher Education Policy Institute. The report takes a broad view on how AI is reshaping higher education, including institutional strategy, teaching and assessment, research, and professional services. Wendy Hall, an internet pioneer and director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton, and Giles Carden, chief strategy officer at Southampton, state in the report’s foreword that “simply acknowledging AI’s presence is insufficient”. “Active, informed engagement and a structured approach to skill development are paramount to ensure universities remain relevant and effective,” they say.

https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-universities-2025-10-urgent-need-for-more-ai-literacy-in-higher-education-report-says/

Concern and excitement about AI - Jacob Poushter, Moira Fagan and Manolo Corichi, Pew Research Center

A median of 34% of adults across 25 countries are more concerned than excited about the increased use of artificial intelligence in daily life. A median of 42% are equally concerned and excited, and 16% are more excited than concerned. Older adults, women, people with less education and those who use the internet less often are particularly likely to be more concerned than excited. Roughly half of adults in the U.S., Italy, Australia, Brazil and Greece say they are more concerned than excited about the increased use of AI in daily life. But in 15 of the 25 countries polled, the largest share of people are equally concerned and excited. In no country surveyed is the largest share more excited than concerned about the increasing use of AI in daily life.

https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/10/15/concern-and-excitement-about-ai/

Sharing Resources, Best Practices in AI - Ashley Mowreader, Inside Higher Ed

While generative artificial intelligence tools have proliferated in education and workplace settings, not all tools are free or accessible to students and staff, which can create equity gaps regarding who is able to participate and learn new skills. To address this gap, San Diego State University leaders created an equitable AI alliance in partnership with the University of California, San Diego, and the San Diego Community College District. Together, the institutions work to address affordability and accessibility concerns for AI solutions, as well as share best practices, resources and expertise. In the latest episode of Voices of Student Success, host Ashley Mowreader speaks with James Frazee, San Diego State University’s chief information officer, about the alliance and SDSU’s approach to teaching AI skills to students.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/academic-life/2025/10/17/podcast-san-diego-colleges-create-equitable-ai

Rethinking student assessment in the age of AI - Max Lu, University World News

As large language models (LLMs) demonstrate astounding capability, they are increasingly being used for tasks once reserved for human judgement. From evaluating essays to assessing conversational exams in medical training, LLMs are increasingly being considered for use beyond formative feedback, including in the high-stakes world of summative assessment. Their appeal is obvious, but before we delegate the complex task of evaluation to algorithms, we must ask a more fundamental question: To what extent does an LLM’s rating represent a student’s actual capability?

https://www.universityworldnews.com/post.php?story=20251008171609398

How to Teach Critical Thinking When AI Does the Thinking - Timothy Cook, Psychology Today

Students who've learned dialogic engagement with AI behave completely differently. They ask follow-up questions during class discussions. They can explain their reasoning when challenged. They challenge each other's arguments using evidence they personally evaluated. They identify limitations in their own conclusions. They want to keep investigating beyond the assignment requirements. The difference is how they used it. This means approaching every AI interaction as a sustained interrogation. Instead of "write an analysis of symbolism in The Great Gatsby," students must "generate an AI analysis first, then critique what it missed with their own interpretations of the symbolism. “What assumptions does the AI make in its interpretation and how could it be wrong?" “What would a 20th-century historian say about this approach?” “Can you see these themes present in The Great Gatsby in your own life?”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-algorithmic-mind/202510/how-to-teach-critical-thinking-when-ai-does-the-thinking

‘The Future of Teaching in the AI Age’ Draws Hundreds of Educators to Iona University - Iona University

“At Iona, we are choosing to engage with AI not because it is fashionable, but because it is necessary. Our students, and of course us as educators as well, are entering a world where AI will shape – or has begun to shape already – nearly every profession, from health care to business to education itself,” said Tricia Mulligan, Ph.D., provost and senior vice president for Academic Affairs at Iona. “AI can provide outputs in seconds, but it cannot help us discern whether those outputs are true, fair, ethical, or good. That work remains profoundly human. Our role as educators is to guide students in cultivating this habit of discernment, so that they graduate not just knowing how to use the latest tool, but how to direct it toward the service of humanity.”

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2025/10/06/3161914/0/en/The-Future-of-Teaching-in-the-AI-Age-Draws-Hundreds-of-Educators-to-Iona-University.html

‘It would almost be stupid not to use ChatGPT’ - Hoger Onderwijs Persbureau, Resource Online Netherlands

Amid widespread concern among lecturers about students’ use of AI tools, public philosopher Bas Haring mostly sees opportunities: ‘Outsourcing part of the thinking process to AI shouldn’t be prohibited.’ Bas Haring annoyed a lot of people with a provocative recent experiment. For one of his students last year, the philosopher and professor of public understanding of science delegated his responsibilities as a thesis supervisor to AI. The student discussed her progress not with Haring, but with ChatGPT – and the results were surprisingly positive. While Haring may be excited about the outcome of his experiment, not everyone shares his enthusiasm. Some have called it unethical, irresponsible, unimaginative and even disgusting. It has also been suggested that this could provide populists with an excuse to further slash education budgets.

https://www.resource-online.nl/index.php/2025/10/07/it-would-almost-be-stupid-not-to-use-chatgpt/?lang=en

How to lead through the AI disruption - Ruba Borno, McKinsey

Prompt engineering as a career path now seems almost quaint. The speed of AI capability is burning a future path for work and leaving recent convictions in the dust. Few executives see the pace of AI innovation as closely as Ruba Borno. As vice president of the Global Specialists and Partners group at Amazon Web Services (AWS), she works with partners and customers across industries to turn rapid technological advances into business impact. On this episode of the At the Edge podcast, she speaks with McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee about leadership strategies, how to avoid pilot purgatory, and why AI security doesn’t slow growth, but speeds it up.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/how-to-lead-through-the-ai-disruption

C-RAC Releases Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) - MSCHE

On October 6, 2025, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC) released a Statement on the Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Advance Learning Evaluation and Recognition. C-RAC stated: 

Put simply, the use of AI in learning evaluation does not conflict with accreditation standards, policies, or practices.  Accreditation is never a reason to not implement technology solutions that leverage AI for learning evaluation. Since innovating to advance student success is a central tenet of accreditation expectations, C-RAC supports the exploration and application of transparent, accountable, and unbiased AI solutions within the practice of learning evaluation and credit transfer. 

https://www.msche.org/2025/10/06/c-rac-releases-statement-on-the-use-of-artificial-intelligence-ai/

As we celebrate teachers, AI is redefining the classroom - Hani Shehada, CGTN

Hani Shehada, a special commentator for CGTN, is a regional manager at Education Above All Foundation's Al Fakhoora Program. He works on global interventions that provide access to higher education for young people whose futures have been disrupted by war and injustice. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN. 

Artificial intelligence is not knocking politely on the door of higher education; it is kicking it wide open. What we thought would take decades is happening in just a few years. In some cases, in months. Universities that stood for centuries as the ultimate gatekeepers of knowledge are now watching that monopoly evaporate in real time. Here lies the irony: the very institutions that claim to prepare us for the future are themselves unprepared for the speed at which the future is arriving. And that forces us to ask a deeper question: What were universities for in the first place?

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-10-05/As-we-celebrate-teachers-AI-is-redefining-the-classroom-1HdvUEhKQSY/p.html

Higher Education AI Transformation 2030 - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

We have begun a transformation in higher education that will make us more responsive, efficient and effective at achieving our multiple missions. This will not be easy or without trauma, but it is necessary. To build this new future, we must first rethink the very foundations of our institutions. This is not about adding a few new apps to the learning management system. Rather, it’s about a fundamental re-architecture of how we operate, how we teach and how we define the work of our faculty and students. Key factors include institutional strategy, pedagogy and the future of work. 

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/10/15/higher-education-ai-transformation-2030

From Detection to Development: How Universities Are Ethically Embedding AI for Learning - Isabelle Bambury, Higher Education Policy Institute

The Universities UK Annual Conference always serves as a vital barometer for the higher education sector, and this year, few topics were as prominent as the role of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI). A packed session, Ethical AI in Higher Education for improving learning outcomes: A policy and leadership discussion, provided a refreshing and pragmatic perspective, moving the conversation beyond academic integrity fears and towards genuine educational innovation. Based on early findings from new independent research commissioned by Studiosity, the session’s panellists offered crucial insights and a clear path forward. 

https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2025/10/03/from-detection-to-development-how-universities-are-ethically-embedding-ai-for-learning/

Four Ways To Improve The Selection Of Leaders -Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Forbes

Few decisions have greater consequences for an organization than the appointment of its leaders. The right leaders can elevate culture, accelerate innovation, and deliver sustainable results. The wrong ones destroy value, diminish trust, and push talented employees out the door. If you’ve ever worked under an incompetent boss, you don’t need the data to tell you how damaging bad leadership can be. But the data is unequivocal: poor leadership selection costs companies billions in disengagement, attrition, and underperformance. It is no exaggeration to say that leadership selection determines the fate of organizations and, by extension, societies. Whether in the corporate world, politics, or sport, getting it wrong is expensive. Getting it right is transformative.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomaspremuzic/2025/09/29/four-ways-to-improve-the-selection-of-leaders/

William & Mary launches ChatGPT Edu pilot - Laren Weber, William and Mary

The initiative is a collaboration between the School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics (CDSP), Information Technology, W&M Libraries and the Mason School of Business and is part of a broader push to embed advanced AI into everyday academic life.  The pilot will explore how AI can enhance teaching, research and university operations, while also gathering feedback to guide the responsible and effective use of AI across campus. The results will help shape how W&M leverages AI to advance our world-class academics and research. Additionally, faculty and staff outside of the pilot who are interested in purchasing an Edu license can visit the W&M ChatGPT Edu site for more information.  

https://news.wm.edu/2025/10/01/william-mary-launches-chatgpt-edu-pilot/

UMass Students Showcase AI Tools Built for State Agencies - Government Technology

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey invited University of Massachusetts, Amherst students to create AI tools to assist public agencies. The students traveled to Boston last week to share their work.  Government leaders in Massachusetts are looking to university students as partners in delivering AI services to their constituents, and a recent showcase highlighted how these collaborations have simplified user experiences with state technology.

https://www.govtech.com/education/higher-ed/umass-students-showcase-ai-tools-built-for-state-agencies

The agentic organization: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era - Alexander Sukharevsky, et al; McKinsey

AI is bringing the largest organizational paradigm shift since the industrial and digital revolutions (see sidebar, “The evolution of operating models”). This new paradigm unites humans and AI agents—both virtual and physical—to work side by side at scale at near-zero marginal cost. We call it the agentic organization. McKinsey’s experience working with early adopters indicates that AI agents can unlock significant value. Organizations are beginning to deploy virtual AI agents along a spectrum of increasing complexity: from simple tools that augment existing activities to end-to-end workflow automation to entire “AI-first” agentic systems. In parallel, physical AI agents are emerging. Companies are making strides in developing “bodies” for AI, such as smart devices, drones, self-driving vehicles, and early attempts at humanoid robots. These machines allow AI to interface with the physical world.

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-agentic-organization-contours-of-the-next-paradigm-for-the-ai-era

Winning through the turns: How smart companies can thrive amid uncertainty - McKinsey

We are living through a period of nearly unprecedented upheaval. Measures of global uncertainty have been rising steadily, according to McKinsey research, and are now nearly double where they stood in the mid-1990s.1 From the pandemic-induced digital acceleration to the ongoing AI revolution, businesses have been caught in a whirlwind of change, which has been exacerbated by new geopolitical tensions and an increasingly uncertain regulatory landscape. This combination of shocks has created one of the most difficult environments leaders have faced—and one that likely won’t change anytime soon. 

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/winning-through-the-turns-how-smart-companies-can-thrive-amid-uncertainty

ChatGPT Study Mode - Explained By A Learning Coach - Justin Sung, YouTube

The main issue is that the interaction remains very user-led, as Study Mode struggles to dynamically adjust its teaching to a beginner's exact level or pinpoint the root cause of confusion without specific, targeted input from the student [10:10]. The coach found that a passive learner could be stuck in confusion for 30 minutes, whereas an active, metacognitive learner was able to break through the same confusion in just two minutes by asking the right questions [16:15]. Ultimately, the host recommends using Study Mode for targeted study with specific questions, advising that users must embrace active, effortful thinking because effective learning cannot be made easy [19:18]. [summary provided in part by Gemini 2.5 Flash]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3jNwwuvqx8

Linking digital competence, self-efficacy, and digital stress to perceived interactivity in AI-supported learning contexts - Jiaxin Ren, Juncheng Guo & Huanxi Li, Nature

As artificial intelligence technologies become more integrated into educational contexts, understanding how learners perceive and interact with such systems remains an important area of inquiry. This study investigated associations between digital competence and learners’ perceived interactivity with artificial intelligence, considering the potential mediating roles of information retrieval self-efficacy and self-efficacy for human–robot interaction, as well as the potential moderating role of digital stress. Drawing on constructivist learning theory, the technology acceptance model, cognitive load theory, the identical elements theory, and the control–value theory of achievement emotions, a moderated serial mediation model was tested using data from 921 Chinese university students. The results indicated that digital competence was positively associated with perceived interactivity, both directly and indirectly through a sequential pathway involving the two forms of self-efficacy.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-18873-3

Sans Safeguards, AI in Education Risks Deepening Inequality - Government Technology

A new UNESCO report cautions that artificial intelligence has the potential to threaten students’ access to quality education. The organization calls for a focus on people, to ensure digital tools enhance education. While AI and other digital technology hold enormous potential to improve education, a new UNESCO report warns they also risk eroding human rights and worsening inequality if deployed without deliberately robust safeguards. Digitalization and AI in education must be anchored in human rights, UNESCO argued in the report, AI and Education: Protecting the Rights of Learners, and the organization urged governments and international organizations to focus on people, not technology, to ensure digital tools enhance rather than endanger the right to education.

https://www.govtech.com/education/k-12/sans-safeguards-ai-in-education-risks-deepening-inequality

From Veterans to Caregivers—The Importance of Expanding Remote Education for Women Worldwide - Brittany R. Collins, Ms. Magazine

Taking the above into consideration, we need to continue normalizing and destigmatizing nontraditional remote learning opportunities as valid, accessible pathways toward women’s realization of their right to an education. This means expanding the number of hybrid and remote learning options available through well-established colleges and universities. It means rethinking the types of technological adaptations deemed as “undue hardships” in the context of student disability. It means investing in longitudinal research regarding best pedagogical practices—the impacts of evidence-based instructional interventions in the remote learning milieu—and in the professional development of online instructors in synchronous and asynchronous online programs to ensure impact. 

https://msmagazine.com/2025/09/27/remote-learning-online-school-women/

The relationship between online learning self-efficacy and learning engagement: the mediating role of achievement motivation and flow among registered nurses - Tong Zhou, Frontiers Psychology

Online learning self-efficacy influences RN learning engagement both directly and indirectly, with mediation effects exerted through achievement motivation and flow. These findings highlight the importance of fostering self-efficacy and motivational processes to enhance engagement in online nursing education.

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1629174/full

We’re introducing GDPval, a new evaluation that measures model performance on economically valuable, real-world tasks across 44 occupations. - OpenAI

We found that today’s best frontier models are already approaching the quality of work produced by industry experts. To test this, we ran blind evaluations where industry experts compared deliverables from several leading models—GPT‑4o, o4-mini, OpenAI o3, GPT‑5, Claude Opus 4.1, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Grok 4—against human-produced work. Across 220 tasks in the GDPval gold set, we recorded when model outputs were rated as better than (“wins”) or on par with (“ties”) the deliverables from industry experts, as shown in the bar chart below.... We also see clear progress over time on these tasks. Performance has more than doubled from GPT‑4o (released spring 2024) to GPT‑5 (released summer 2025), following a clear linear trend. In addition, we found that frontier models can complete GDPval tasks roughly 100x faster and 100x cheaper than industry experts.

https://openai.com/index/gdpval/

We urgently call for international red lines to prevent unacceptable AI risks. - AI Red Lines

Some advanced AI systems have already exhibited deceptive and harmful behavior, and yet these systems are being given more autonomy to take actions and make decisions in the world. Left unchecked, many experts, including those at the forefront of development, warn that it will become increasingly difficult to exert meaningful human control in the coming years.  Governments must act decisively before the window for meaningful intervention closes. An international agreement on clear and verifiable red lines is necessary for preventing universally unacceptable risks. These red lines should build upon and enforce existing global frameworks and voluntary corporate commitments, ensuring that all advanced AI providers are accountable to shared thresholds. We urge governments to reach an international agreement on red lines for AI — ensuring they are operational, with robust enforcement mechanisms — by the end of 2026. 

https://red-lines.ai/?utm_source=newsletter.theaireport.ai&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=200-world-leaders-demand-ai-red-lines&_bhlid=11a58d14d5cf5f15774f2f52256329b3db7ab7ea

AI Hallucinations May Soon Be History - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed

On Sept. 14, OpenAI researchers published a not-yet-peer-reviewed paper, “Why Language Models Hallucinate,” on arXiv. Gemini 2.5 Flash summarized the findings of the paper: "Systemic Problem: Hallucinations are not simply bugs but a systemic consequence of how AI models are trained and evaluated. Evaluation Incentives: Standard evaluation methods, particularly binary grading systems, reward models for generating an answer, even if it’s incorrect, and punish them for admitting uncertainty. Pressure to Guess: This creates a statistical pressure for large language models (LLMs) to guess rather than say “I don’t know,” as guessing can improve test scores even with the risk of being wrong."

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/columns/online-trending-now/2025/10/01/ai-hallucinations-may-soon-be-history