We all have a friend who abuses ChatGPT for their schoolwork. However, one party using ChatGPT not often talked about professors who use it to guide their work. Students should not be paying for an education in which A.I plays a large part. 

For many students, professors have included in their syllabi the prohibition of using A.I., so it would be pretty jarring to discover they are using the same tools forbidden from their classrooms. 

A national survey done by Tyton Partners in 2024 recorded that of more than 1,800 higher-education instructors, 18% labeled themselves as frequent users of generative A.I. tools; that number nearly doubled when repeating the study this year. This percentage does not equate to the misuse of these tools, as some professors use them for grammar checks. The growing number of professors using A.I. prompted a Northeastern University senior to demand her tuition back after discovering her professor utilized ChatGPT to generate feedback for their work. 

Part of the prompt submitted by the teacher was left in one of the notes, reading, “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific,” according to The New York Times. 

Accurate and specific feedback is especially important for college students because it allows for them to understand the mistakes in their work and the knowledge to correct them in the future. 

If professors cannot take the time to provide thoughtful corrections to their students’ work and rely on A.I. to do it for them, then they are not cut out for this profession. 

I understand that professors are often taking on larger class loads for lower wages, which is a stressful situation. However, we are paying the tuition price for highly educated humans to teach us, not an algorithm that is free and at our disposal. 

Professors are already undervalued enough as it is; there is no need for them to further devalue themselves with the misuse and abuse of A.I.