Most people think of AI in terms of ChatGPT, Alexa, or even Skynet. 💥 We’re not quite there, yet, fortunately! Anyway, outside of students and their book reports, AI is generally viewed as a bad thing. But that’s not always the case, especially when it comes to higher education.
Here are Five Fast Facts on how AI might make higher education cheaper:
- 🤔 Use It Wisely - Most of the conversation around AI in the modern workplace worries about lost jobs. That is definitely a reality we’ll have to contend with, but there’s also a major upside to it if used properly to act as a copilot and helper rather than think of it as a heartless job-killing overlord.
- ⚙️ History Teaches Us - The key is in the automation. One example from history is how the powered loom and the spinning machine made mass-produced clothing affordable to everyone. By automating the production, everything got cheaper (both to make and to buy), and people were freed up to do more complex or important things. Like fixing powered looms and spinning machines… 😉
- 🎓 Higher Education - The cost of private college in the US went up by 40% from 2004 to 2023, and public college went up by almost 50%. A lot of that was administration - career counseling, wellness checks, and extracurricular activities. But AI can almost instantly look at a student’s academic records and other personal data to provide career guidance, or perform grading and sending out assignments. This means fewer people are needed for those menial tasks, and they can focus on the more complex and creative things instead. And we just might start getting our money’s worth from college that way!
- 💻 Software - New software companies are using AI to perform basic coding and other tasks much more efficiently, meaning innovation costs less and happens faster. Disruptor on steroids, here we come!
- 🩺 Health Care - The health care industry has more potential for AI efficiency than you can shake a tongue depressor at! Drug discovery, precision measurements or procedures, or transcribing would all allow medical personnel to spend more time with patients and less time staring at a screen.
🔥Bottom line: It’s like any major new technology change - it’s going to shake things up! Some will love it, some will hate it, some will inevitably lose their jobs to it. But if you use it well, it can open up all kinds of new potential that will do things faster, which means they’ll get cheaper. And that’s something all our Paychecks will love!
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