The AI Rock and Hard Place. Online and in-person, artificial intelligence is presenting colleges with impossible choices.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | September 3, 2025 | John Stuart

[karpov]

The email dropped into my university account with a quiet ding, an inauspicious start to what would become an unwanted foray into the messy world of AI “false positives.”

With the arrival of the short missive from my professor informing me that my essay had been flagged for AI use, I was caught up in what would became a weeks-long process to appeal and clear my name of alleged AI use on an assignment in my counseling graduate course. The ordeal thrust me into the university’s AI-detection administrative machine, where I joined the many others across higher education experiencing a similar false-positive fate. Without wanting to be, I had become part of the broader AI conversation taking place across the university ecosystem.

These discussions often revolve around how AI is disrupting the age-old university-educational model, as well as how universities are attempting to maintain the status quo through the use of AI-detection tools such as Turnitin, which have been roundly criticized as ineffective and expensive. This has led to some major universities pulling the plug on AI-detection software entirely.

The issue is reaching a watershed at the same time that, “for the first time, more college students will take all of their classes online than will take all of their classes in person,” according to a recent projection from the Hechinger Report. A less discussed aspect, however, is that generative AI is putting at risk not only the university-educational model but the entire business model of online-only programs, as well.

Universities are slow-moving creatures by default and are not known for breakneck innovations in educational approach. The university I attend is no different, despite its large online student body and many asynchronous programs, such as the one I am enrolled in.

[Tell It Right]

Universities are slow-moving creatures by default and are not known for breakneck innovations in educational approach.

Except for when it comes to pushing the latest woke. In that the universities not only keep up with whatever the media woke push, often the universities are ahead of the game promoting it (breakneck innovations).

[RoosterRedux]

One way around the AI-detection mess is simple: fewer paper assignments, more oral defenses. If a student really wrote their work, they should be able to explain and defend it face-to-face (or over video).

It raises standards, makes cheating much harder, and strengthens the student–professor connection. In many ways, it brings back the old rigor of the dissertation defense, scaled to everyday coursework.