Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
May 21, 2025 at 04:30PMI’ve been contemplating future education options for my 7-year-old daughter, and I get anxious when I think ahead and imagine her navigating a higher education system that feels so broken. James D. Walsh’s Intelligencer story about ubiquitous ChatGPT use among college students is a bleak read. It’s depressing to sit and think about today’s undergraduates—many of whom will never know the academic experience without AI—and the increasing number of people earning degrees who may be essentially illiterate. Teachers, on the other hand, describe “AI’s takeover as a full-blown existential crisis.” Some professors use AI detectors to spot plagiarism, while others have decided to embrace AI in their classrooms. But most educators are at a loss for what to do, and unless there’s a radical shift, there’s no stopping the bots in higher education.
Once the chatbot had outlined Wendy’s essay, providing her with a list of topic sentences and bullet points of ideas, all she had to do was fill it in. Wendy delivered a tidy five-page paper at an acceptably tardy 10:17 a.m. When I asked her how she did on the assignment, she said she got a good grade. “I really like writing,” she said, sounding strangely nostalgic for her high-school English class — the last time she wrote an essay unassisted. “Honestly,” she continued, “I think there is beauty in trying to plan your essay. You learn a lot. You have to think, Oh, what can I write in this paragraph? Or What should my thesis be? ” But she’d rather get good grades. “An essay with ChatGPT, it’s like it just gives you straight up what you have to follow. You just don’t really have to think that much.”
The ideal of college as a place of intellectual growth, where students engage with deep, profound ideas, was gone long before ChatGPT. The combination of high costs and a winner-takes-all economy had already made it feel transactional, a means to an end.
In case you’re curious, here is ChatGPT’s summary of Walsh’s story:
The New York Magazine article “Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College” delves into the escalating use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT among college students to complete assignments, often crossing into academic dishonesty. It highlights the case of Chungin “Roy” Lee, a Columbia University student who extensively relied on AI for coursework and later developed Interview Coder, an AI tool designed to assist users in cheating during remote job interviews. The piece underscores a broader trend where students across institutions are heavily using AI to navigate academic demands, frequently with minimal consequences due to ineffective detection tools and inconsistent institutional policies. Educators face increasing challenges distinguishing human effort from AI-generated content, leading to concerns about the erosion of traditional academic integrity and the potential long-term implications for student learning and workforce preparedness.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2025/05/21/chatgpt-ai-college-cheating/
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