The greatest risk of AI in higher education isn’t cheating – it’s the erosion of learning itself
February 19, 2026
Public debate about artificial intelligence in higher education has largely orbited a familiar worry: cheating. Will students use chatbots to write essays? Can instructors tell? Should universities ban the tech? Embrace it?
These concerns are understandable. But focusing so much on cheating misses the larger transformation already underway, one that extends far beyond student misconduct and even the classroom.
Universities are adopting AI across many areas of institutional life. Some uses are largely invisible, like systems that help allocate resources, flag “at-risk” students, optimize course scheduling or automate routine administrative decisions. Other uses are more noticeable. Students use AI tools to summarize and study, instructors use them to build assignments and syllabuses and researchers use them to write code, scan literature and compress hours of tedious work into minutes.
