84% of high school students use AI for schoolwork, College Board reports

The College Board reported in late 2025 that 84% of high school students in the United States used artificial intelligence for schoolwork by May, up from 79% in January. Approximately half of these students used the technology to brainstorm, revise essays, or research topics. This sharp increase has triggered a national debate among educators about the state of classroom engagement.

Teachers argue that AI did not create a crisis in student motivation. Instead, they say the technology removed the friction from low-level academic tasks, making it impossible to ignore a problem that has existed for years. By handling routine work instantly, generative AI has stripped away the excuse to maintain a transactional model of education where students merely complete tasks for grades.

Alex Campbell, a sociology teacher at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee, illustrates an alternative approach. In 2017, he tasked his students with solving the Redhead Murders, a series of unsolved killings from the late 1970s and early 1990s. His students built timelines, interviewed victims' families, and developed a theory supported by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Their work evolved into a podcast and an Amazon Prime series that reached the top three rankings in July 2024.

Campbell stated that the project succeeded because he told students upfront that it would be difficult. He noted, "If you ask people about the most meaningful experiences of their life, they’re almost always hard." This aligns with the concept of "hard fun," a term popularized by MIT Media Lab co-founder Seymour Papert in the mid-1980s. Papert observed that students found difficult coding assignments enjoyable precisely because of the challenge.

Chris Hulleman, a researcher at the University of Virginia, has studied student motivation for over 20 years. He argues that schools have historically prioritized efficiency and standardized test scores over relevance. Hulleman said, "We have just not done a great job overall in education in making school interesting and relevant to kids." He believes AI has changed the social contract between students and schools. Students now question the purpose of assignments and use free tools to bypass work they find boring or irrelevant.

Rebecca Winthrop, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, points to a 2024 Gallup survey. The data showed that fewer than half of middle and high school students said their coursework challenges them. Only 17% strongly agreed that they learned something interesting at school in the previous week. Winthrop argues that AI has layered onto an already weak educational culture, exposing the gap between what schools offer and what the modern job market requires in terms of higher-order thinking skills.

Darren Lam, an 18-year-old graduate of Staten Island Technical High School in New York, described his peers' habits. He said some students use AI to automate school entirely, noting, "basically the AI is the student." Others use it for undesirable assignments or to save time. Lam acknowledged that while some students refuse the tool on principle, many others rely on it despite concerns about academic integrity.

Dylan Kane, a Colorado math teacher, compares AI to indoor plumbing. Just as plumbing freed people from hauling water but reduced daily exercise, AI automates cognitive effort. Kane warns that chatbots might reverse the Flynn effect, the long-term rise in IQ scores. He suggests schools should focus on "cognitive exercise" through challenging activities like robotics, debate, or woodworking to keep minds active.

Priten Soundar-Shah, author of "Ethical Ed Tech," suggests teachers can leverage student skepticism. He proposes asking students who they would trust more in a foreign country: a fluent speaker or someone relying on translation earbuds. Ben Riley, founder of Deans for Impact, notes that students often do not want to be "suckers" while classmates use AI for an advantage. Eric Anderman, an educational psychologist at Ohio State University, reminds pre-service teachers that grades are artificial constructs. He emphasizes that cheating rises when teachers focus on tests and falls when they emphasize mastery.