{"id":27524,"date":"2026-08-04T17:12:38","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27524"},"modified":"2026-08-04T17:12:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:12:38","slug":"exclusive-college-students-want-ethical-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=27524","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive: College students want ethical AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/r2Y8_dWQApp5B6IWQUFhWLA78dY=\/1366x768\/smart\/2024\/03\/22\/204448-1711140288314.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The number of business students regularly using AI has increased from 6.2% to 29% over the past three years, according to research from American University&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/04\/03\/generative-ai-business-school-students\" target=\"_blank\">Kogod School of Business<\/a>, shared first with Axios.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/05\/19\/college-graduates-ai-commencement-speech\" target=\"_blank\">chorus of AI boos<\/a> at college graduations last spring doesn&#8217;t tell the whole story: Students increasingly see AI as a critical job skill but want more guidance on using it responsibly.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>Those commencement jeers aimed at AI boosterism captured real anxiety about the future. But most students aren&#8217;t fully avoiding the technology.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Undergraduate and graduate business students want &#8220;more structured preparation to use AI effectively, ethically, and competitively in the workplace,&#8221; per the study.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;We haven&#8217;t encountered a lot of resistance,&#8221; Kogod interim dean Casey Evans tells Axios. &#8220;We&#8217;re very intentional,&#8221; she says, as opposed to forcing AI on students with no choice. &#8220;They are really using AI as one of many tools in their toolbox.&#8221; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By the numbers: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/kogod.american.edu\/news\/ai-at-kogod-a-three-year-student-research-report\" target=\"_blank\">Kogod&#8217;s survey<\/a> suggests AI has moved from a novelty to a routine part of student life, with more than 80% of college students using AI academically in the past six months.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nearly a third of students are now using it 11 or more times a week for school or work-related tasks.<\/li>\n<li>Some professors are still putting blanket bans on AI. But employers are not: The share of job interviews that included AI-related questions has jumped from 11.6% to 42.6% over the past three years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Caveat:<\/strong> The survey&#8217;s three-year span gives it a rare longitudinal view of changing student behavior, though it reflects just 483 business students at Kogod and may not generalize to all colleges.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Yes, but: <\/strong>Other studies reflect similar findings. According to an Inside Higher Ed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.insidehighered.com\/news\/student-success\/academic-life\/2026\/06\/11\/why-students-arent-all-ai-what-they-want-colleges\" target=\"_blank\">flash survey<\/a> of 1,038 two- and four-year students, 85% said they used generative AI for coursework in the past 12\u00a0months.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Similarly, <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/704090\/routine-college-students-despite-campus-limits.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">a Gallup poll<\/a> from April found that more than half (57%) of U.S. college students use AI &#8220;at least weekly&#8221; and one in five say they use it daily.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Students do have concerns<\/strong>, however. One of those is AI dependence, with 40% of students in the Inside Higher Ed survey saying they&#8217;re concerned that AI is reducing their and their peers&#8217; ability to think independently.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Over half of Kogod students, meanwhile, say they&#8217;re concerned about academic integrity and the use of AI.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Between the lines:<\/strong> American University&#8217;s report shows that students say they want clearer norms around AI use, ethics and how to preserve their own thinking alongside use of tools.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kogod&#8217;s business school is already teaching students how to use AI responsibly, Evans says.<\/li>\n<li>When ChatGPT first came out, Evans says, faculty focused on academic integrity, fighting against AI and making sure all assignments were &#8220;AI-proof.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;We&#8217;ve moved on pretty quickly from that,&#8221; she says. &#8220;We&#8217;ve accepted that this is something that students will use&#8221; which means faculty members completely reevaluating their role in the classroom and what the classroom looks like. <\/li>\n<li>&#8220;We&#8217;ll drop an assignment into AI and say, &#8216;What you just got back is a C. Now let&#8217;s talk about how you get to an A,'&#8221; Evans says.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What we&#8217;re watching: <\/strong>The report says the most popular use case for AI in college over the past three years has been brainstorming.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But brainstorming with AI could also stifle creativity: Last year Wharton <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41562-025-02173-x\" target=\"_blank\">found<\/a> that people came up with a broader range of creative ideas when they used their own thoughts and web searches, compared with when they used ChatGPT.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/06\/18\/ai-chatgpt-research-creativity-brainstorming\" target=\"_blank\">Idea variance<\/a> can come from using ChatGPT to generate ideas, while also brainstorming your own ideas and collecting original ideas from others.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The bottom line:<\/strong> Students may not love the AI-shaped future awaiting them, but they know that they need to prepare for it.<\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The number of business students regularly using AI has increased from 6.2% to 29% over the past three years, according to research from American University&#8217;s Kogod School of Business, shared first with Axios. Why it matters: The chorus of AI boos at college graduations last spring doesn&#8217;t tell the whole story: Students increasingly see AI&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/r2Y8_dWQApp5B6IWQUFhWLA78dY=\/1366x768\/smart\/2024\/03\/22\/204448-1711140288314.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}