Open Letter in Response to “Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast"

More Degrees Than Dollars: Why AI Feels Like a Betrayal—and a Blessing

By Dr. Muhsinah L. Morris

Final Blog Post with Help from ChatGPT (see raw notes below)

As an XR and AI education expert and a professor of chemistry & education in higher education, I read the article "Rampant AI Cheating Is Ruining Education Alarmingly Fast"with a critical and informed eye. The piece raises urgent concerns about the misuse of generative AI tools in academic settings, particularly among college students. While the article rightly highlights the growing anxiety around academic integrity, it also presents a narrative that deserves deeper scrutiny. Several assumptions, gaps, and overlooked opportunities for educational reform stood out to me and warrant further discussion.

What stood out most to me is that today’s students urgently need to be taught not just how to avoid AI misuse, but how and when to use AI responsibly. Yet, the very institutions now sounding the alarm have spent the last decade allowing students to use AI and digital tools with little guidance or real consequences. We’ve cultivated dependency without equipping learners with discernment. And now, in a reactionary stance, we risk stripping away access altogether—effectively sabotaging the one promise higher education has long held: that it is a pathway to upward mobility.

AI being used in education can either be a blessing or a betrayal...I choose to find the blessing. I choose joy.

As someone who has dedicated over two decades to formal education—earning a B.S. in Chemistry, an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomolecular Chemistry, progressing toward an MBA in Project Management, and completing teacher certification for Science grades 6–12—I can say with authority that higher education in America has often sold a dream it does not consistently deliver. The cost of the climb is steep. I’ve watched family members and peers who chose trade schools or short-term certification programs build wealth faster and with less debt than those of us who followed the academic blueprint. Many of my colleagues, armed with less formal education but more social capital, were able to turn relationships into powerful career momentum in ways that education never afforded me. I got it out of the mud, but the analog grind didn’t grant me access to the digital economy fast enough—and now I see students being punished for trying to bypass that same slow lane with tools that, ironically, could democratize access to success if we taught them better.

Another striking truth the article glosses over is this: students are acutely aware that they are being outpaced—not by their college peers, but by those who chose not to enroll in traditional higher education at all. While they sit in classrooms racking up debt, others are leveraging AI to launch businesses, code apps, create digital products, and monetize skills in real time. These non-traditional learners are building resumes, portfolios, and financial security without the four-year delay or the burdensome cost.

In contrast, many college students spend those years socializing in curated environments, shielded from the pressures of self-sufficiency. What was once considered a rite of passage has, in some cases, become a four-year suspension of real-world readiness. Instead of cultivating grit, independence, and personal responsibility, the structure of higher ed can inadvertently delay the development of these essential traits. In some ways, it resembles a holding cell—polished and credentialed, yes—but disconnected from the lived demands of economic survival and personal evolution happening outside its gates.

I also find myself wrestling with conflicting thoughts about the utility of AI in education—especially how it should be used. I know it will be used. That much is inevitable. But the how still feels unsettled. I’ll admit, I used AI to help shape this very piece—not to think for me, but to help me organize my thoughts, clarify my grammar, and catch the run-ons I’m prone to when passion overtakes precision. The ideas are mine. The voice is mine. But the polish? That’s shared with a tool. So where exactly is the line?

I’ve written a 333-page dissertation in biomolecular chemistry—by hand, with my own research, my own failed experiments and triumphs, documented line by line. And yet, I sometimes feel like a lesser scholar than the chemists of old who typed dissertations on clunky typewriters or labored through printing presses. I think of the ancient philosophers who committed vast bodies of knowledge to memory, passing wisdom through oral traditions. We don’t do that anymore. Does that make me less of an academic? Less of a human? Less of an expert? I doubt it.

I also struggle to believe that AI will truly replace knowledge workers like myself—academics, educators, researchers. And perhaps that’s why I see such defensiveness from some of my colleagues when the topic of AI in education arises. At first glance, it feels perplexing, almost absurd. But when I dial deeper into what they’re really expressing, I understand: it feels like the end of an era. The end of who you thought you’d be in the world. To be replaced, not by a person, but by a tool—an inanimate object that knows nothing of the nights you cried over failed experiments, the papers you rewrote until dawn, the sacrifices you made to earn the knowledge now reduced to a query and a keystroke. That kind of existential grief? I get it.

It stings in the same way it stings me as a mother of a child with autism. I watch other children develop, speak in full sentences, make plans for college—while my 17-year-old still finds joy in the simplicity of toddler cartoons and struggles to form consistent language. I hurt, but I don’t envy. I long, but I don’t resent. I hope, always.

It hurts, too, as a woman with three advanced degrees, specialized certifications, and more than two decades of dedication to education, to still not have crossed the six-figure threshold in my chosen career. I've watched others—less credentialed, less committed to the sacred work of nurturing minds—build wealth, retire early, take care of their families with ease. I’ve always worked more than one job, never had a summer off, and constantly carried the judgment of those who couldn’t understand my choices: to have a large family, to be flexible in my career, to follow purpose over paychecks.

Life is radical that way. It tests what we value most.

So I understand the fear. Being outpaced by AI can feel like just one more reminder that your sacrifice didn’t pay off in the way you hoped. That your legacy might be replaced by a faster, shinier, tireless version of the mind you honed through sweat and resilience.

But even through the ache, I remain a glass-half-full kind of girl. I don’t want to grieve the rise of AI. I want to shape it. I want to reframe it. I want to ask: How can we make this technology a bridge instead of a barrier? A blessing instead of a threat? What if we used it to reclaim time with our families, to pour more energy into creativity, connection, and care? What if we reimagined education, not as a rigid staircase, but as an open road where AI accelerates access, especially for those who’ve always been last in line?

What if AI could finally do what higher education promised—but never quite delivered—for people like me?

I wonder…

And maybe you wonder too. If you do, let’s not let that wonder go to waste. Let’s shape this next era of education—with both heart and technology—so no one has to choose between dignity and innovation, between purpose and progress. Let’s build a future where we’re not replaced, but remembered for how we chose to adapt—with grace, courage, and hope.

Thompson, D. (2025, May 7). Rampant AI cheating is ruining education alarmingly fast. New York Magazine – Intelligencer. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/openai-chatgpt-ai-cheating-education-college-students-school.html (Archived at http://archive.today/cxvKR)

See below for the raw notes put into ChatGPT to help write this blog post.

Original Thought Prompts & Reflections:

1. "The things that stood out to me are this: 1. students in this generation need to learn how and when to use AI but the higher education system has allowed them to use AI and other tools over the past decade without any true repurcussions.  Now if they stop the use of AI they ruin the chances that a higher education can be lucrative for creating career pathways and a way out of poverty.  The narrative has alwaYs been that a higher education is a ticket to a better life and so educational institutions use that in order to siphpn thousands of tuition dollars out of people as a first class ticket to the intellectual class.  However, as a woman with three degrees a BS in chemistry, MS in biomolecular chemistry, a PhD in biomolecular chemistry and courses towards a MBA in business administration with an emphasis on project management  and a teacher certification for science grades 6-12, I know that education especially in America has been telling the cruelest lie.  I have family and friends who attended trade school and ceritification programs and did not spend 24 years in school ike me who make salaries far higher than mine and have amassed much more wealth than me and business acumen.  I have colleagues with more social capital and had a lot more time to devote to social pursiuits thus making connections that helped propel their careers politically further than my education ever did.  I got it out the mud but that analog way of doing has gotten me no where even now."

2. "Let me add another thing that was striking was that students know that they will be outpaced by folks unable or unwilling to go into debt for a higher education and shoose to use AI to start businesses to code apps to sell digital products and to make a living or at least have a huge start in life from using AI to power their knowledge.  Meanwhile students headed to college waster 4 years of time going into debt, socializing, and beoming lesser human beings because they have not had to grit out life and be self-sufficitent and responsible.  It is almost akin to sending your kids to prison rather than to the real world of work where real life is happening."

3. "I have conflicting thoughts about the utility of AI in education and how it should be used.  I know that it will be used but how still eludes me.  I use it, in fact, I used it to craft this article, to get my thoughts out and then have it grammatically correct all the run on sentences and incorrect grammar.  but the thoughts are mine so where is the line.  i know how to write and have hand written a 333 page biomilecular chemistry dissertation in which i did the work with my hands and wrote up every bit of the failings and successes.  however, i am still a lesser student than the chemistry students of old, who typed their dissertations using a typewriter or those wh had to go to the printing press.  I also think about the philosophers of old who believed in oral traditions to pass down knowledge and how much we now do not commit to memory because we don't have to.  does that make me a lesser academic or human or expert in my field?  i doubt it."

4. "I also have difficulty believing that AI will take the jobs of knowledge workers like myself, an academic and professor and that is why my colleagues mayb e so defensive about the use of AI in education.  I find that to be perplexing in fact lmost absurd but then when i dial down deep into what they feel, I can see how it seems like an end of an era.  the end of who you thought you would be in the world replaced by a tool, an inantimate object that has not idea the trials that you endured to actually obtain the knowledge that you have.  i can see how that can hurt.  it hurts just like it does for me as a mom as a child with autism to watch other children develop and do normal age based activities while my 17 year old still has the interests of a 3 year old and the language of an 18month old.  It hurts just like me as a woman with 3 degrees, certifications and specializations still have not made 6 figures from her chosen career path as an academic while i see less educated and less invested in the greatest gift of our future, children make more money and be able to take care of their families better.  i have always worked more than 1 job as an educator and never had a summer off and i think of all of the naysayers who believe differently about my own choices to have more children, to be more flexible in my career, to invest my time into purpose rather than a paycheck.  life in itself is radical in that way and i can see how being out paced by AI can also make one feel inferior and less than.  but i want us as human beings to find a way forward that makes this transition into the use of technology something more than a loss . i am a glass half full kinda girl and all i can think about is how to make a win from this use of AI in education and in the world.  what can i do to make the use of this technology seen as a tool to help us have more time with our families, and be more present in things other than work. how can we do with AI for opportunity that edudcation once did.  i wonder..."