E&W Blog

Today, the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a hearing to examine how artificial intelligence (AI) is impacting higher education. This was the seventh hearing in a series examining artificial intelligence.

Subcommittee Chairman Burgess Owens (R-UT) started the hearing by highlighting how higher education is adapting to the AI era. 

“AI can personalize instruction in ways that a single instructor teaching many students simply cannot do. It can identify students who are struggling before they fall behind. It can reduce the administrative burdens that consume faculty and staff time, freeing them to focus on students. AI can also help better align academic programs with the knowledge and skills employers need,” he said. 

Rep. Mark Harris (R-NC) asked Dr. Dave Duke, Chief Product Officer for Higher Education at McGraw Hill, how higher education can better equip students with the skills, adaptability, and AI literacy necessary to succeed in a rapidly changing economy. “One way is to integrate it into the curriculum. We could define the set of skills the students need to make sure that they get them along the way,” Dr. Duke explained. 

Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) asked witnesses how to prevent students from outsourcing critical thinking skills to AI. 

“When [AI is used] to support the kind of personalization we’ve discussed earlier, great! When it’s to do the cognitive automation where you’re not doing the work, that’s a huge problem,” said Mr. Michael B. Horn, Author & Adjunct Professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Having a clear set of what’s the learning objective? what are the tools allowed? how are we going to assess it? [is critical].” 

Innovation must be paired with responsibility. Clear policies and responsible implementation can help ensure AI strengthens, rather than undermines, educational outcomes. 

In an exchange with Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI), Mr. Jonathan Fozard, Chief Information Officer at Florida State University, discussed how to keep people at the center of AI. 

“We have to use critical thinking skills to be able to determine and differentiate fact from fiction…if we view AI through this lens of being the sole source of truth, we negate the human aspect,” Mr. Fozard said. 

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) summarized the issue at hand perfectly. “We should welcome this inevitable reality—technology has changed how the world works since the horse and buggy. We didn’t look back, we looked forward and that’s what we need to do here as well. Our education system has a challenge—to prepare [our students] for the reality, not train them for the jobs that will no longer exist,” he said. 

Bottom line: The future workforce will be shaped by AI. Higher education has an opportunity to help America lead by preparing students for emerging careers, fostering innovation, and ensuring AI is used responsibly to strengthen learning and economic opportunity.