There’s no evidence students want this. It will be framed as workforce-preparedness. But what upper admins at big unis are really worried about is how much of their endowments are in AI via private funds. Generate short-term revenue for OpenAI & hope the IPO makes you whole before bubble pops.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h ago

Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns

A long-form post responding to the recent conversation between Tyler Cowen (George Mason economist) and Michael Kratsios (Director of OSTP) in the NYT "Interesting Times" series, where the "New Golden Age of Science" is a means to undermine universities and serve political priorities.

Political Science

What happens when the White House’s “New Golden Age of Science” becomes a means to undermine universities and serve political priorities instead

joshuasweitz.substack.com

I think the money to hire more faculty is there. It just seems to be spent on people who don’t do research or teaching which, last I checked, was the whole point of being a university.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD@ubiquity75.xyz · 4h ago

The UCFA “found that, from 2011 to 2025, tenured and tenure-track faculty positions increased by 20% while senior administrative positions increased by more than 100%. It also found that there are 3,000 more senior administrators than there are Academic Senate faculty.”

The UCFA “found that, from 2011 to 2025, tenured and tenure-track faculty positions increased by 20% while senior administrative positions increased by more than 100%. It also found that there are 3,000 more senior administrators than there are Academic Senate faculty.”

UC Faculty Association calls on UC to hire more faculty, criticizes growing ‘senior administration’

The UC Faculty Association is calling on the UC system to hire more faculty, protect research budgets and defend university research against federal funding cuts.

dailycal.org

So this is a common critique but as someone who has both taken one of these courses and taught it, the point is not mastery but inculcating curiosity, building up capacity for reading and resilience, and really understanding that you know nothing about the world. These are very valuable lessons.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 5h ago

I'm sympathetic to the idea here - we should try to figure out how to answer / cultivate this sort of demand - but I'm pretty skeptical of this approach. How much of Moby Dick or The Iliad can you really talk through in 1-2 lectures, especially if doing close reading for the first time?

Many people love the idea of a great books course mandatory for undergrads that is taught by tenure line faculty. Nobody wants to pay for it - certainly not at scale.

Harvard's Hum10a is actually not like the Columbia or UChicago cores at all. It's more like Princeton's HUM sequence, which was undoubtedly the model. Not mandatory, restricted enrollment, a high # of tenure-line faculty doing the teaching.

infopleaseh.bsky.social@infopleaseh.bsky.social · 7h ago

Also, this Harvard class sounds a lot like Columbia University's famous Core Curriculum which is required/available to all Columbia College students. I believe they have also banned electronics and AI for Core Curriculum classes.

Real books and small classes at Harvard; meanwhile across the state at UMass I just walked out of class to this (which is unfortunately normal) ….

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 9h ago

don’t forget the inverse secondary, inequality the other way: freedom to learn with your human brain from human teachers who professionally decide on curricular applications of model use, a freedom for only the students at one kind of institution

Welcome to Brooklyn College, where they just let Classics die

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 8h ago

The kind of class that is increasingly only available at places like Harvard - not because students at public universities aren't clamoring for it (they are) but because public universities are treated as a site for disciplining future workers, not educating people to be free.

The kind of class that is increasingly only available at places like Harvard - not because students at public universities aren't clamoring for it (they are) but because public universities are treated as a site for disciplining future workers, not educating people to be free.

Anna Kornbluh@annakornbluh.bsky.social · 8h ago

“At Harvard, students are clamoring for a class that assigns a hefty book a week, requires regular essays, bans digital devices. Humanities 10 drew 180 applicants for just 90 spots this fall. Students expressed urge to be forced to think for themselves in the age of AI." www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ha...

don’t forget the inverse secondary, inequality the other way: freedom to learn with your human brain from human teachers who professionally decide on curricular applications of model use, a freedom for only the students at one kind of institution

Also Moody's ratings. Moody's rates bonds, institutions, etc. based on corporate finance markers. For higher ed, negative markers are high percent of tenured fac, unions, dips into endowmt/rainy day funds. Positive markers, union busting and contingent/adjunct faculty. www.moodys.com/researchandr...

I agree with this. The entire logic of paying for private school is that instead of struggling politically to democratize public ed in our f'd up society, you use your $ to exempt your kid from its negative vicissitudes. Why you then would pay for AI to be imposed on your kid?

Amanda Katz@katzish.bsky.social · 9h ago

I get what is happening, which is these companies desperately need to create demand for their product, but I also DON’T get what is happening. Administrators think families want to pay a zillion dollars for a prompting degree? If I were a Princeton parent I would be seriously working the phones rn

I get what is happening, which is these companies desperately need to create demand for their product, but I also DON’T get what is happening. Administrators think families want to pay a zillion dollars for a prompting degree? If I were a Princeton parent I would be seriously working the phones rn

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h ago

Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns

literally cannot do research I planned to do in my research leave because bot harvesting is impacting the digital resources of the French national library so badly that I can barely access more than 5 images a day before “too many requests” error

The Spaceshipper 🚀@thespaceshipper.com · 17h ago

The digital library of the National Library of France (Bibliothèque nationale de France), Gallica, is currently facing "a massive intensification in the harvesting of content by AI bots, which is degrading the service provided to our human users." What a dumb dystopia 😅

People running our institutions *absolutely* believe this.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 10h ago

Oh absolutely. The purpose of public higher education is to serve as a site for predation, data collection, and experimentation for big tech. Real books and discussion based classes are not allowed.

As @dennismhogan.bsky.social has observed: hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-f.... UChicago has already realized this. Princeton clearly hasn't yet.

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 11h ago

Some tuition-paying parents among the PMC don't want AI. They already are upset that their kids in middle & high school don't have homework anymore & struggle to read a book. They are paying for tutoring/analog extra-curricular enrichment for their children. Some elite college will tap into this.

Another way to think about this is that the new inequality won't be about which institutions can afford compute for students, but which institutions can afford to offer analog experiences like real books and discussion based seminars to students and which cannot.

Brendan Cantwell@cantb.bsky.social · 11h ago

There’s the primary issue - should universities facilitate LLM use among their students - and then a secondary one that also deserves consideration - compute inequality. Students at other kinds of institutions will not have access to the same quality of models or have comparable compute budgets.

Like I bet UChicago is not going to see much of a hit in terms of applications because of⬇️ . It might actually see an increase. The coming divide on AI will be its wide scale imposition on public higher ed while rich private institutions will opt out chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...

Sosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This Fall

All social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students...

chicagomaroon.com

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 11h ago

Some tuition-paying parents among the PMC don't want AI. They already are upset that their kids in middle & high school don't have homework anymore & struggle to read a book. They are paying for tutoring/analog extra-curricular enrichment for their children. Some elite college will tap into this.

The rich university model is that even though it could afford to expand tenure-line hiring, it needs to keep the number of tenure-line faculty relatively low in order to maintain a sense of exclusivity and prestige. But spending on AI is apparently not considered a hit to prestige.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h ago

Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns

the people who do the teaching and research should be the people who decide whether and how to award enormous corporate welfare contracts for ed tech — not the non-educator BOTs and admin suites with personal financial interests in the shaky corporations

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h ago

Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns

Earlier this year, Princeton was forced to end its 133-year honor code tradition of unproctored exams due to rampant AI-based cheating. This does not seem to have given the administration the slightest pause.

Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 12h ago

Just got an email announcing that Princeton is offering ChatGPT accounts to all undergrads next semester. Looking forward to other helpful innovations lIke giving them unlimited heroin or free handguns

Some bot has emailed (to the University Library) Lord Acton (we hold his library) to see if he would agree to them promoting one of his books. Lord Acton died in 1902 😂

@abenanav.bsky.social and my special issue on ai and labor is out with ilwch! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

There are not many things that 97% of Americans have in common. High school English is one of them.

the markets have essentially become a gauge for how much corruption the government in power is going to let the business class get away with

Roy Edroso@edroso.bsky.social · 2d ago

Suck ass, The Economist

Big news! The @hpe-project.bsky.social is thrilled to invite applications for two residential fellowships at the @remarquenyu.bsky.social at NYU for AY 27-28, in our Histories and Futures of Global Governance Initiative. Info and call for applications here: www.hpeproject.org/hfgg-cfa

Absolutely not.

Opinion: Ohio has put $59 million into civics institutes at five public universities. Now a new bill would give their directors “sole and exclusive authority” over civics courses statewide. The author argues this is a new front in curriculum politics. https://chroni.cl/4A7C8PF

Opinion | ‘Civics’ Is a Right-Wing Plot — and They’re Not Even Hiding It

Red-state mission statements reflect the political corruption of scholarship.

chronicle.com

We defund public higher ed, effectively privatizing it, and then are furious about the obvious consequences www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/b...

Public Colleges Are Passing the $50,000-a-Year Mark. For Locals.

At the University of California campuses in Berkeley, Irvine and Santa Barbara, students get an unwitting education in navigating the housing market.

nytimes.com