Title: AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Author: Ronald Purser
Publication: Current Affairs
Date: 1 December 2025
Summary:
The article argues that public universities, exemplified by the California State University system, are outsourcing education to AI platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT while simultaneously cutting faculty, programs, and student services. It describes how AI-driven “innovation” accelerates corporatization, normalizes cheating, hollows out learning, and turns students and faculty into unpaid beta testers in an unregulated experiment. It further contends that this transformation undermines critical thinking, exploits marginalized students, and turns higher education into a supply chain for tech companies rather than a public good.
Quotes:
“California State University isn’t investing in education—it’s outsourcing it, paying premium prices for a chatbot many students were already using for free.”
“This isn’t innovation—it’s institutional auto-cannibalism.”
“Why would our institution buy a license for a free cheating product?”
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