For decades, higher education has been perceived and promoted as the path forward for people hoping to succeed in life. Although this was never truly the case, most people’s entire mandatory education was spent alluding to university being the right way to go. As the 20th century moves forward, however, the attitude toward higher education, as well as what it actually entails for people pursuing it, is changing drastically.

As accessibility and use of generative artificial intelligence become steadily more widespread within the academic landscape, among both students and educators, the question of what that means for the integrity of higher education becomes almost unavoidable.

The pandemic and its necessary migration to online lectures meant students continued to pay the same fees that, in a normal world, would offer them socializing, networking, and direct connections to potential employers, whether it be for mentoring or the prospect of a genuine job offer somewhere down the line. Skipping Zoom lectures, not getting the academic support necessary, and not having access to resources that are crucial to the process of learning and research, all while dealing with worldwide lockdowns, definitely created a basis for the decline of higher education.

Then came the widespread use of generative AI by students in educational settings, a ubiquitous topic of discussion since programs like ChatGPT have become easy to access and use. It should come as no surprise that students of all ages turn to the supposedly all-knowing robot in their devices for answers to avoid digging for information through textbooks and academic journals or spending hours writing an essay that Gen-AI can produce in a few seconds if prompted correctly.

Students, however, have been known to find an easy way out of schoolwork for decades, whether it be copying straight from Wikipedia or getting someone to write their homework for them — there’s nothing new about taking the path of least resistance when trying to get through a system one doesn’t necessarily want to be in. The benefits of a comprehensive education are often lost on people until long after they’ve left school, which tends to seem like just a thing one has to do because they’re told to by those around them.

Higher education, on the other hand, is a choice. While there are societal pressures and a constant insistence that pursuing it is what makes the difference between being a success and a failure, or financial stability and living paycheck to paycheck, the reality is that it is in no way mandatory. Despite this, many young people feel like it’s something that they have to do, for one reason or another, which, in the current age of anti-intellectualism and almost complete technological dependency, is leading the concept of higher education to a place where it is no longer what it’s supposed to be.

Rather than being inspired by a desire to learn, grow, and develop, pursuing a higher education has become a point to be ticked off a checklist. The institutions that used to be a goal to aspire to are slowly morphing into bona fide diploma factories — a label that is becoming more and more true as years go on—and involve little to no care for the integral part that entails learning and exploring things with like-minded people.

Again, the concept of education, even elective education, feels like an obligation to most isn’t new to anyone. Growing up, we are all consistently told that pursuing education at a university level is how we become well-rounded people, get a good job, and, consequently, build a good life. It has become a means to an end, rather than something intended to enrich those who pursue it on an individual basis. Its core intention is to broaden horizons, a pursuit that, regardless of what people may think, does require a desire and willingness to learn in a specific way and setting standardized in a way that often fails to benefit those in it.

It isn’t unexpected for students to feel unmotivated if they feel pressured or unsupported by the system they’re herded into throughout their lives. However, the educators turning to generative AI to mark work or create lecture content is an indication of a complete descent into chaos within the very concept of higher education.

How can students be expected to take an optional educational path seriously if the people educating them don’t even put in effort to mark their work themselves instead of putting it through a bot? If the individuals who put themselves through often a decade or more of higher education in order to teach don’t believe they should invest their time and effort in furthering the education of today’s youth, how and why should the youth pursuing it understand its value?

It is unreasonable to continuously guide young, impressionable people towards a path on which the people who should act as guides have surrendered their academic integrity to the incoming technological developments. The disintegration of higher education is sadly becoming more feasible of a concept, and it has to be faced one way or another — whether it means changing the system in which young adults are motivated to pursue it or developing the way in which it is delivered. A change has to be made within the scope of higher education, or it may dissolve in its entirety.