AI, Universities, and the Question of College Impact

Debates surrounding artificial intelligence are intensifying, and universities are no exception. Recent controversies over AI-assisted academic misconduct have sparked public concern. Media reports have highlighted students recording professors’ voices for later AI use while paying little attention during lectures. Some universities have begun experimenting with real-time translation AI in classes for international students. At the same time, there is ongoing disagreement over how AI should be used in research, and many institutions still lack clear guidelines for AI-related practices.

The changes students undergo through higher education, and the complex interplay of factors shaping those changes, can be broadly understood through the concept of college impact. A substantial body of research demonstrates that higher levels of student engagement and a stronger sense of belonging are consistently associated with more positive educational outcomes. As AI becomes embedded in everyday life, a pressing question emerges: how will the magnitude and direction of universities’ influence on students change?

In my view, recent discussions of AI in higher education have focused primarily on two areas: ethical issues in research and instructional practices within classrooms. These are important concerns, but they capture only part of the picture. College impact extends far beyond knowledge production through research or knowledge transmission through teaching. It encompasses every interaction students encounter both inside and outside the campus, including relationships with peers, faculty, and staff, as well as the institutional systems, environments, and structures they experience directly or indirectly.

One of the core assumptions underlying AI-driven change in universities is that as communication between humans and AI increases, the forms and intensity of interaction that traditionally foster engagement and belonging may shift. In other words, the very conditions through which universities exert their developmental influence on students could be fundamentally altered.

In the Korean context, college impact has received relatively limited scholarly attention. This can be attributed, in part, to a deeply hierarchical higher education system in which institutional brand carries immense symbolic capital. After surviving an intensely competitive admissions process, students’ subsequent growth and development during their university years have historically drawn less attention. The oft-repeated anecdote that students could “do nothing for four years and still be recruited by companies at graduation” may not have been much of an exaggeration.

That era, however, has long passed. A university diploma alone is no longer sufficient to secure employability or sustain long-term market value. As global competition has intensified, government support and institutional self-reliance have both become more critical. In response, universities have significantly expanded systems designed to enhance college impact. Student support programs unimaginable to previous generations have emerged, shaped by each institution’s strategic priorities. The proliferation of innovative curricular, co-curricular, and competency-based programs illustrates how the nature and possibilities of student development have evolved.

Against this backdrop, the AI era has arrived. If students increasingly seek to fulfill their learning, experiential, and relational needs through interaction with AI rather than with people, what will follow? Such a shift risks weakening students’ relationships with their universities and, ultimately, diminishing the influence universities exert on their development.

International higher education is not immune to this challenge. Cross-border education has long been valued for the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional growth that arises from encountering different educational systems and cultures. Yet if students abroad engage primarily with AI rather than with people in their host communities, or if local students themselves rely more on AI than human interaction, the resulting experience will differ markedly from that of earlier generations.

The disruptive impact of AI on universities is already evident. What remains uncertain is how far-reaching its consequences will be. As we move beyond digital natives toward an AI-native generation entering higher education, the central question becomes clearer. In the age of artificial intelligence, the core of meaningful college impact, and perhaps the key to institutional competitiveness, may lie in deliberate humanization.