ChatGPT Adoption in Higher Education: A Disappointing Enterprise

In early 2023, the arrival of ChatGPT/AI in higher education created a buzz, heralded as the progressive tool poised to transform coaching and learning. Often reflecting neoliberal sentiments, the Chronicle of Higher Education hailed it as the next big component, drawing parallels with previous ed-tech ideas.

However, the reality of the ChatGPT effect fell short of expectations, as evidenced by student feedback. Despite its staggering overall performance, AI is positioned to become a modern tool of corporate college self-preservation in the face of longstanding neoliberal schooling regulations.

Unfulfilled Promises: Challenges with ChatGPT Implementation

Curiosity led me to integrate ChatGPT into all of my college courses in the fall of 2023. Unfortunately, the experiment revealed a number of problems. Students cited inaccuracies in ChatGPT searches, biased records, and a lack of encouragement to ask vital questions—except when seriously comparing the role of AI in the classroom. The consensus among students turned out to be that ChatGPT did not live up to its advertised capabilities.

But the limited charge for AI as a learning device takes a back seat to its broader implications. It manifests itself not as an academic benefit, but as a strategic flow through the corporate university to reduce costs and increase returns at a time when the traditional corporate version of better training is in disarray.

The Rise of the Corporate University: A Shift in the Educational Paradigm

The corporate university version, originating in the 1970s, brought about a paradigm shift in which universities followed corporate structures and control patterns. This shift marked an abandonment of the shared governance model, giving the college an equal voice in college affairs.

Instead, a version of commercial organization fashion took hold, inspired by the upward pressure of neoliberal political philosophies advocating reduced government involvement.

Driven by reduced investment and a desire for a new business plan, public universities have adopted a corporate model, depending much less on faculty and more on a contingent pool of workers.

This model favored a standardized, prepackaged curriculum and tapped directly into a burgeoning market of college students willing to pay escalating tuition for credentials in an increasingly aggressive environment.

The role of technology in corporate university strategies

Technology played a key role in the company’s university plan. Despite the mixed results in the literature on the impact of the latest technologies on coaching and mastering, there has been a vogue for faculty to be persuaded to over-invest in generation because it improves education.

The mantra has shifted to “technology drives pedagogy” and is more aligned with profit motives than authentic pedagogical improvement.

For-profit schools initially led to the introduction of new technologies, later influencing conventional facilities. The goal has changed to leveraged generation, which includes online publications, to educate large cohorts of scholars into trainers, reducing dependence on a complete education university.

This shift has morphed into “excessive impact” education, sidelining conventional strategies such as lecture, dialogue, study, study, and writing.

The Struggles of the Corporate University and the Promise of ChatGPT

The corporate version of the company continued until the Great Recession of 2008-09, but when you take that into account, the number of college students has been steadily declining. Faced with a looming enrollment cliff and coupled with a staggering $1.8 trillion debt burden, a growing number of college students are questioning the true value of a college education, especially as tuition costs rebound.

In this uncertain landscape, ChatGPT emerges as a newfound wish for better education. However, its hype and commitment may be more motivated by corporate profits and cost-cutting measures than the proper price of education.

As the university company grapples with monetizing ChatGPT, we may also see it integrate with MOOCs or other mass curriculum delivery methods as a last-ditch effort to salvage a failing business plan.

Key Points

• ChatGPT/AI has been hailed as a game-changer for better schooling since its inception, as have various income-based ed-tech features.
• However, the writer enjoyed ChatGPT their guidelines, finding problems such as misinformation, bias, and lack of vital thinking.
• The true price of AI lies in its potential for an era of price-cutting and revenue-cutting within the struggling corporate university version.
• The rise of the corporate college in the 1970s involved the abandonment of shared administration in the College of Business Engineering.
• This shift has been driven by neoliberal policies favoring market structures and limited government funding of public universities.
• The characteristic feature of the corporate university model has become a conditional school, a pre-prepared curriculum, and exorbitant tuition fees.
• Technologies such as online courses have become accepted as a way to handle more college students with fewer complete schools.
• The Great Recession and declining student numbers exposed the shortcomings of the university’s commercial business model.
• ChatGPT’s hype probably stems from its potential for profit and similar diminution of value, not always educational value.
• Expect partner universities to integrate ChatGPT with current austerity measures like MOOCs to save their failing business plans.

Also Read: Can Artificial Intelligence Outperform Humans? Unveiling the Technical Landscape

The fact is that universities have been transforming themselves into corporations for decades. Gone are the days when the college had a say in how things went. Now it’s all about business fashion, squeezing revenue and catering to a market flooded with titles.

This shift coincided with cuts to authority funding that forced universities to rely on hard work at a reasonable price, pre-packaged curricula and exorbitant class costs. Technology became their weapon of desire, promising to deal with more students and fewer teachers.

But the bubble burst in 2008 and the number of registered users fell sharply. It turns out that now not all of us can justify the glamorous charge of the title, especially when we are burdened with mountains of debt. Now that ChatGPT is in the picture, universities may be eager to monetize it, perhaps pairing it with those online courses they love so much. It’s all about staying afloat, even if it’s a method of sacrificing the very essence of training.