Guest Column: The plight of the generation, AI from a student perspective

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The last few years have seen an unprecedented increase in the use of generative AI technology, particularly in higher education. In the 2025 HEPI Student Generative AI Survey, the percentage of students who used AI in some way to assist in their education jumped from 66% in 2024 to 92% in 2025, with 64% of all surveyed students reporting using it for text generation. 

I love writing, and I clearly see its value, but while pondering how to convince students that the benefits of writing offer a greater incentive than AI-usage does, I couldn’t justify my stance. A common analogy used by AI opponents imagines the AI-using student as a gym member who, instead of using the weights to build muscle and get physically fit, picks up the weights and moves them to a different rack, as if that was the whole point. The metaphor seeks to explain that the point of education is not to hand in a polished paper and get the grade (moving the weights) but to strengthen critical thinking skills and gain knowledge (building muscle). It condescendingly paints the AI-using student as a fool who wastes their tuition money without realizing the true purpose of education.  

Let me ask you: would you still pick up those weights, do a good 20 bicep curls, and potentially drop them on your foot, if you knew that just by moving them to the other rack, you could get a well-paying job? Or if, as research has shown, moving those weights to the rack seems like the only way to get a well-paying job? Let me be clear: I am not an AI supporter, but the incentives that the higher education system has put in place are making it increasingly difficult for the average student to justify ignoring the tempting advantages of these tools. 

The higher education system is centered around what Professor Andrew Horne and his colleagues term “grade-focused interactions,” where the student’s main concern is the grade they receive on assignments and the grade they get in the class. Students who adopt this approach are frowned upon and told “it’s not about the grade.” This is no better illustrated than in the patronizing label for students who negotiate for a few extra points as “grade-grubbers.” Educators seem baffled by students’ hyperfixation on grades, the system that they maintain, not understanding that in many minds more points mean a degree, and a degree means money. And now, we are presented with AI, the ultimate point-generator. 

This is the plight of our generation. The AI-utilizing student compromises their education for the promise of a stable future, and the conscientious student risks suffering a major disadvantage to preserve their integrity. The academic economy threatens students with failure, gives them the perfect tool to avoid that failure, and what do they expect them to do? Work hard and pray you get the grade too, so it doesn’t go to waste? No wonder the student begins to devalue their education. Even before AI, we’ve been taught, not through words, but through actions, that there is a greater incentive.  

Professor Daniel Cryer compares our dilemma to a governance strategy called responsibilization. Through responsibilization, the government shifts responsibility for a certain issue to an individual level, reducing its own role in that issue. This can be an effective mode of governance, but only when the individual is given the resources or has the bandwidth to uphold the responsibility once managed by the government. Ensuring academic integrity was once a shared responsibility between student and teacher, but we’ve entered an age where the burden of choice between honesty and success is placed inequitably on the student. I don’t know the solution to this, but I urge educators and administrators to consider the responsibility each student now shoulders in the midst of a new technological era.  

One place to start would be to begin rewarding the right things. As we’ve seen, actions speak louder than words. A student could show immense critical thinking (at least relative to their own growth) and put in a lot of effort into organizing their thoughts and putting them on the page, only to receive a poor grade for organization or, even worse, because the professor does not agree with their point. AI has only further exposed deep-rooted issues within higher education. As much as educators try to convince students that strengthening critical thinking is at the core of education, students won’t focus on process in a product-driven system.  

Fortunately, we have those who see writing for what it truly is. USU History professor Taylor Gombos says, “Writing forces you to clarify your own thoughts, which are, by their nature, imprecise. The beauty of writing is that it forces you to systematically organize those thoughts in a way that achieves communication. This is a tremendously valuable skill, no matter what you do after college. I cannot imagine a world where that is not only important, but absolutely critical.” 

Let’s start rewarding thinking. Not perfect grammar or coherence, not spitting back the professor’s instruction, not ideas you agree with, but real thinking. Obviously, there is great value in learning to communicate effectively to a wide academic audience and get your facts straight; however, AI doesn’t threaten our ability to write a compound sentence more than it threatens our ability to craft original arguments, think for ourselves, and truly learn. Students, what are educators and administrators showing you they value? Educators, how can you remind students that thinking is what you truly value? Many students can’t afford to be anything but practical about their education, so make thinking a good investment. 

I’m not asking for an upheaval of the current education system, but I ask for a little grace and support for your students who now carry this massive ethical burden while trying to survive in a vicious economy. Prove to your students what it really is that you value. 

Morgan Evans is a writing fellow at Utah State University. 

— a02439800@usu.edu