Nik and Zach review the best and worst of AI in higher ed for 2025. AI and Higher Education: 2025 We unpack the collapse of AI detection, the rise of system-wide AI partnerships like CSU and OpenAI, uneven assessment redesign, growing faculty stratification, and mounting concern that generative AI is hollowing out entry-level knowledge-work jobs. The episode closes by looking ahead to 2026, including model updates, political backlash, environmental impacts, and what higher education faces if the AI bubble bursts.

Nik and Zach’s top five of the year:

Mentioned:

Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast (Intelligencer / New York Magazine, May 7, 2025)

Experts Weigh In on “Everyone” Cheating in College (Inside Higher Ed, May 20, 2025)

Unfixed episode 16: Inside the CSU-OpenAI Partnership

OpenAI and the California State University system bring AI to 500,000 students and faculty (OpenAI, Feb 2025)

CSU, OpenAI roll out ChatGPT Edu to California college students (Axios, Feb 4, 2025)

OpenAI targets higher education with ChatGPT rollout at CSU (Reuters, Feb 4, 2025)

2025 EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study: Into the Digital AI Divide (EDUCAUSE, Feb 2025)

AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself (Current Affairs, Dec 2025)

These Students Use AI a Lot — but Not to Cheat (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2025)

How AI Is Changing—Not ‘Killing’—College (Inside Higher Ed, Aug 29, 2025)