Many universities in the US are signing multi-million dollar deals with AI companies even as budget cuts persist. These choices raise questions not only about technological transformation on campuses but also about where education budgets are being spent.
Despite significant budget constraints, California State University renewed its chatbot agreement with an AI company at higher costs. This move represents a new financial burden of millions of dollars for the university.
For AI companies, these agreements serve as important showcases demonstrating that their technologies can be widely used in higher education. Universities often view such collaborations as a matter of prestige.
However, internal dissatisfaction is growing as budgets are cut directly from educational activities and redirected to these areas. The core criticism is that resources expected to be allocated for students and staff are instead being funneled into administrative technologies.
The use of AI not only in administrative tasks but also in education and assessment processes raises even greater risks. Research conducted by Cambridge University revealed that advanced AI systems produce inaccurate results when grading student assignments and papers.
The study found that these systems are overly sensitive to linguistic features such as text length and sentence complexity rather than the quality of academic content. As a result, strong works sometimes received low scores, while weaker works received high scores.
Experts emphasize that exam and assessment processes are not just about assigning grades; human judgment is necessary to recognize student effort and maintain trust in education. Examples ranging from graduation ceremonies to exam evaluations are intensifying the debate over how and to what extent AI should be used in universities.
