Last February, Northeastern University student Ella Stapleton was struggling through her organizational behavior class. She began reviewing the notes her professor created outside of class early in the semester to see if it could guide her through the course content. But there was a problem: Stapleton said the notes were incomprehensible. 

“It was basically like just word vomit,” said Stapleton.

While scrolling through a document her professor created, Stapleton said she found a ChatGPT inquiry had been accidentally copied and pasted into the document. A section of notes also contained a ChatGPT-generated content disclaimer.

Stapleton believes her adjunct professor was overworked, teaching too many courses at once, and was therefore forced to sacrifice his quality of teaching with a shortcut from artificial intelligence. 

“I personally do not blame the professor, I blame the system,” said Stapleton. 

Stapleton said she printed 60 pages worth of AI-generated content she believed her professor utilized for the class and brought it to a Northeastern staff member to lodge a complaint. She also made a bold demand: a refund for her and each of her classmates for the cost of the class.

“If I buy something for $8,000 and it’s faulty, I should get a refund,” said Stapleton, who has since graduated. “So why doesn’t that logic apply to this?”

Stapleton’s request made national headlines after she shared her story with The New York Times.

The moment on Northeastern’s campus encapsulates a larger issue that higher education institutions are grappling with across the country: how much AI use is ethical in the classroom?

NBC10 Boston collaborated with journalism students at Boston University’s College of Communication who are taking an in-depth reporting class taught by investigative reporter Ryan Kath.

We took a deep dive into how generative AI is changing the approach of higher education, from how students apply it to their everyday work to how universities are responding with academic programs and institutional studies. 

With its widespread use, we also explored this question: what is AI doing to students’ critical thinking skills?

A degree in AI? 

While driving along a highway in rural New Hampshire, a billboard caught our attention.

The message advertised a Bachelor of Science degree in artificial intelligence being offered at Rivier University in Nashua. We decided to visit the campus to learn more about the new program.  

“The mission of Rivier is transforming hearts and minds to serve the world, and that transformation means to change,” said President of Rivier University Sister Paula Marie Buley. 

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At Rivier University, students pay almost $40,000 for a bachelor’s degree in artificial AI, which will prepare them for a field with a median salary of roughly $145,000, according to the institution.

Upon graduating, the aim of Rivier’s undergraduate program in AI is for students to hold professional practices that allow them to strengthen their skills in the dynamic field. 

Master’s degree programs in artificial intelligence have begun to pop up in universities across New England including Northeastern University, Boston University, and New England College. The first bachelor’s degree in AI was created in 2018 by Carnegie Mellon University, according to Master’s in AI. 

“We want students to enter the mindset of a software engineer or a programmer and really haven’t an idea of what it feels like to work in a particular industry,” said Buley. “The future is here.”

In a 2024 survey from EDUCAUSE, a higher education advocacy nonprofit, 73% of higher education professionals said their institutions’ AI-related planning was driven by the growing use of these tools among students.

At Boston University, students can complete a self-paced, four-hour online course to earn an “AI at BU” student certificate. The course introduces the fundamentals of AI, with modules focused on responsible use, university-wide policies, and practical applications in both academic and professional settings, according to the certificate website.   

Students are also encouraged to reflect on the ethical boundaries of AI tools and how to critically assess their use in coursework.

BU student Lauren McLeod said she doesn’t understand the resistance to AI in education. She believes schools should focus on teaching students to use it strategically. In lieu of clear institution-wide policies, AI usage policies differ from professor to professor.

“Are you using [AI] in a productive way, or using it to cut corners? They just need to change the framework on it and use it as a tool to help you,” said McLeod. “If you don’t use AI, you’re gonna fall behind.”

Despite rising awareness, colleges are slow to develop new policies. Only 20% of colleges and universities have published policies regarding AI use, according to Inside Higher Ed. 

AI and critical thinking

AI is becoming an everyday tool for students in the classroom and on homework assignments, according to Pew Research Center.

Earlier this month, we stopped students along Commonwealth Avenue on BU’s campus to ask how much AI they use and if they think it’s affecting their brains. 

BU student Kelsey Keate said she uses AI in her coding classes and knows she relies on it too much.

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“I feel like it’s definitely not helped me learn the code as easily, like I take longer to learn code now,” said Keate. 

That is what worries researchers like Nataliya Kos’myna.

This June, the MIT Media Lab, an interdisciplinary research laboratory, released a study investigating how students’ critical thinking skills are exercised while writing an essay with or without AI assistance.

Kos’myna, an author of the study, said humans are standing at a technological crossroads—a point where it’s necessary to understand what exactly AI is doing to people’s brains. Three groups of 54 students from the Boston area participated in the study.

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“This technology had been implemented and I would actually argue pushed in some cases on us, in all of the aspects of our lives, education, workspace, you name it,” said Kos’myna. 

Tasked with writing an SAT-style essay, one student group had access to AI, one could only use non-AI search engines, and the final group had to use their brain alone, according to the project website. 

Recording the participants’ brain activity, Kos’myna was able to see how engaged students were with their task and how much effort they put into the thought process.

The study ultimately concluded the convenience of AI came at a “cognitive cost.” Participants’ ability to critically evaluate the AI answer to their prompt was diminished. All three groups demonstrated different patterns of brain activity, according to the study. 

Kos’myna found that students in the AI-assisted group didn’t feel much ownership towards their essays and students felt detached from the work they submitted. Graders were able to identify an AI-unique writing structure and noted that the vocabulary and ideas were strikingly similar.

“What we found are some of the things that were actually pretty concerning,” said Kos’myna. 

The paper for the study is awaiting peer review but Kos’myna said the findings were important for them to share. She is urging the scientific community to prioritize more research about AI’s effect on human cognition, especially as it becomes a staple of everyday life. 

After AI discovery, tuition refund rejected 

In the wake of filing a complaint, Stapleton said Northeastern was silent for months. The school eventually put the adjunct professor “on notice” last May after she had graduated.

“Northeastern embraces the responsible use of artificial intelligence to enhance all aspects of its teaching, research, and operations,” said Renata Nyul, vice president for communications at Northeastern University in response to our request for comment. “We have developed an abundance of resources to ensure that both faculty and students use AI as a support system for teaching and learning, not a replacement.” 

In addition to the AI-generated content being difficult to understand and learn from, Stapleton said it doesn’t justify the cost of tuition. In her complaint, Stapleton asked that she and all of her classmates be reimbursed a quarter of their tuition for the course.

Her refund request did not prevail, but Stapleton hopes the attention her story received will provide a teachable moment for colleges around the country.

“In exchange for tuition, [universities] grant you the transfer of knowledge and good teaching,” said Stapleton. “In this case, that fundamentally wasn’t happening, because the only content that we were being given was al AI-generated.”

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The story was written by Amato, Kim and Sferrazza and edited by Kath