OPINION:
The education wars are coming for the Harris and Trump campaigns.
The pro-Palestinian demonstrations that overthrew Columbia University President Minouche Shafik in New York have migrated to Chicago, disrupting the choreography of the Democratic National Convention. Meanwhile, supporters and critics alike wonder if Vice President Kamala Harris’ policy-sparse campaign will embrace President Biden’s student loan forgiveness agenda.
On the Republican side, Texas is poised to become the nation’s largest school choice state after the election. At the same time, former President Donald Trump’s novel GOP platform vows federal backing for career training and “Patriotic Civics Education.”
All of this posturing, protesting and policy planning seems important, but it will soon be irrelevant. The education system is on the verge of being radically transformed regardless of who wins the White House in November — thanks to learning assisted by artificial intelligence.
State-driven school choice or federally backed “Patriotic Civics Education”? Those won’t be issues when students embrace personalized, low-cost AI tutors to learn the skills and knowledge they and their parents think are best. Education choice will be a fact not because of policy but because of technology.
This current college generation will be the last to be plagued by student loans or to gather on campus for mass protests, because AI electronic learning will soon destroy the traditional university system as we know it.
The universities won’t admit it, but they are terrified. AI e-learning offers everything universities don’t: a 1-1 student-to-professor ratio, a teacher who is available 24/7, 365 days a year, a tutor who adjusts its teaching style and approach to the student’s needs — and will do it all for a fraction of the tuition universities charge today.
Unless heavy-handed government intervention chokes innovation, only two obstacles can slow this future down. The first is kinks in AI education technology itself. A recent report from the University of Pennsylvania found that students who used AI to prepare for math tests did worse on the test than those who practiced the old-fashioned way. This study, however, doesn’t reveal a flaw in the theory behind AI tutors but rather shows how the system can be improved.
Generative AI went from an unknown entity to being integrated into daily life within two years. We shouldn’t be surprised that there are bugs but rather that such a technology is still in its infancy. Nonetheless, it progresses immensely by the day. The question is not whether these kinks will be fixed, but when.
The second obstacle to AI education ascendancy is the jealously protected brands of high-profile colleges and universities. Most have realized that places such as Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia fail to deliver a high-quality product to students. Students at elite schools seem even less capable of critical thinking and more blinded by ideology than the average person. But thanks to cultural inertia, names such as Harvard, Penn and Columbia still carry enormous prestige.
But even these storied brands are starting to buckle. University presidents are being removed for ethical misconduct and inability to keep order on campus. At the same time, the public — especially struggling recent graduates — is coming to realize that the education they’re being offered is rarely worth the debt incurred to get it.
AI e-learning won’t battle entrenched powers as much as it will tip over the already tottering Jenga tower of higher education.
Legacy institutions face a choice: They can either embrace AI and radically change their approach to education, or they can ignore the winds of change and go the way of other once powerhouse institutions that failed to reform, such as Blockbuster, Sears and MySpace.
I won’t hold my breath for radical change. Large institutions with decades of ingrained habits and practices don’t change quickly, which is why when AI-based education does take over, it won’t be Columbia sharing the good news. Instead, like all new technology, it will be delivered by upstart innovators — places that care more about teaching than tenure and more about the quality of education than the size of their endowments.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump differ on a lot of issues. But when it comes to the future of education, their opinions don’t matter. The future is coming no matter who wins on Nov. 5.
• Jeff Kleck is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, an adjunct professor at Stanford University and the dean of academics at the Catholic Institute of Technology.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.