AI has made it ‘close to impossible’ to assess university coursework, regulator says
England's higher education regulator, the Office for Students, has warned that widespread AI use in essays and dissertations is threatening the credibility of university degrees. It is urging institutions to shift back to traditional in-person exams and presentations as a way to reliably assess what students actually know.
Why this matters: This is what happens when a credential system built on trust runs into a tool that removes effort from the equation. A degree is supposed to signal what you can do. If assessors cannot tell whether the work is yours, the signal breaks. That hurts honest students most, because their grades sit next to ones that may have been generated in minutes. Returning to in-person exams is a blunt fix, but the regulator is not wrong that something has to change. The harder question is whether universities waited too long to act.
Who should care: Lawyers · Privacy officers · Compliance · General readers · AI governance · Policy
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