Degrees of Intelligence: How Can Higher Education Make the Most of AI?

Higher education tends to change slowly, until it doesn’t. AI is bringing about challenges more systemic and complex than students using chatbots to write essays. While gen AI tools offer a path to personalized, 24/7 tutoring that scales for everyone, they simultaneously challenge the traditional methods of testing and grading that have stood for decades. Institutions now face a divide between those embracing automated learning and those attempting to protect academic integrity from sophisticated machine outputs. This creates a moment of forced evolution, where the very value of a degree is being questioned. How do we measure real learning when a machine can replicate the results? What skills should be prioritized when AI can increasingly perform well in various professional, knowledge-based tasks? And how can universities integrate this technology without losing the human critical thinking that higher education is built on?