Banned in class, required at work

Amanda Cullen, a first-year at NC State graduating in 2030, says most of her classes forbid AI entirely. She heads into a job market where it is everywhere.

“If it's such a mainstream thing in careers, we should know how to do it in school.”

The tech outran the degree

Universities are stuck between an outright ban and letting students lean on AI for everything. The models improved radically in less time than a four-year degree takes.

The numbers favor knowing it

McKinsey found 88% of companies are using AI. A PwC study from June put the average wage premium for workers with AI skills at 62%.

The cheating problem is real

AI made an old problem far easier, and some experts warn that outsourcing coursework stops students from mastering the skills their profession will demand.

Show your prompts

In one intro Python course at NC State, students can use AI on assignments but must upload transcripts of their prompts and the model's replies.

“I get teachers not wanting to use AI for anything, but, I mean, the world's changing, people are using AI everywhere.”

No single campus rule

NC State has no university-wide AI policy. Faculty set course-specific expectations that permit, limit, or prohibit it, and students have to follow whatever their syllabus says.

Faculty are coming around

Sabrina Habib, an AI coordinator at South Carolina, lets students use AI if they disclose how and reflect on it. Her colleagues now treat it as a workforce skill.

“We don't want to eliminate it because then we're missing the opportunity of teaching how to use it in a way that's ethical and critical.”