Earlier this year, education researcher Lixiang Yan realized that students could outsource all of their work for his university course to artificial intelligence. In praise of human teachers: universities must resist outsourcing everything to AI. Yan, who teaches at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, was using an agentic AI called Codex to set up an online course on a learning-management platform. But it quickly became clear that the adept AI could independently complete all the assignments, answer questions and participate in discussions, “without the learner being intellectually engaged” at all, Yan says. The experience made Yan think that teaching students to reason and think for themselves “is more critical than ever”, he says. And he is hardly alone.
Professional, Continuing, and Online Education Update by UPCEA
Daily updates of news, research and trends by UPCEA
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Friday, October 2, 2026
Two years of OpenAI Academy - OpenAI
To ensure the benefits of AI are broadly shared, people need the skills and confidence to use it in their everyday lives. Since launching in September 2024, OpenAI Academy has helped people build those skills through practical training for tasks ranging from teaching and running a small business to developing software. Over the past two years, OpenAI Academy has hosted more than 250 events, and more than 4 million people have engaged with Academy content. That work has brought together educators, small business owners, developers, nonprofit leaders and community members to learn, practice, and share what works. For this next chapter, we’re expanding OpenAI Academy through a new trainer program that prepares people and organizations to teach Academy material in their communities. This program builds on our work with partners and will make training and ongoing support available closer to where people live and work.
https://openai.com/index/two-years-of-openai-academy/
U of Kentucky Online recognizes faculty, staff for excellence in online teaching - Lindsey Piercy, UKnow
Three faculty members and four staff members were honored Sept. 16 during the University of Kentucky Online Awards ceremony, which featured the inaugural presentation of the UK Online Teaching Award. Now in its second year, the UKO Advocate recognition expands the UKO Excellence Awards by giving UK Online staff an opportunity to nominate faculty or staff members who work closely with them to support online teaching and learning across the university. The four UKO Excellence Award recipients are staff members nominated by their peers for their contributions to UK Online. Established in 2024, the UKO Excellence Awards provide an opportunity for the unit to celebrate its accomplishments and recognize staff members who contribute to its success.
Thursday, October 1, 2026
The next AI divide is between learning and earning - Taha Bawa and Michele Malejki, World Economic Forum
Young people are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) but knowing how to use AI does not automatically translate into jobs or income. Training should extend to hands-on projects, such as internships and apprenticeships, so young people can hone their skills. A lack of access to devices, connectivity and professional networks can prevent young people from benefiting from AI.
Small Moves, Big Impact: Building a Positive Climate in Online Classes - Amie Cieminski, Faculty Focus
One of the challenges that online instructors face is creating a sense of connectedness in which students feel present, “seen,” heard, and part of the learning community. We know student engagement and learning are enhanced when students feel connected—students to the content, students to the instructor, and students to each other. In online environments, social presence is when students perceive that others are real, accessible, and engaged. Researchers such as Garrison (2017) and Lowenthal and Dunlap (2018) have linked increased social presence to higher student satisfaction, stronger participation, and more meaningful learning experiences in online settings. Given this, I offer several strategies to increase social presence and improve your online classroom climate.
The economics of AI - McKinsey Quarterly
AI is getting more expensive for companies. As rising token usage and workflow complexity make costs harder to predict, leaders need new ways to manage AI economics. Even with token prices falling, AI operating costs keep rising. Companies that get it right understand the six drivers behind this gap.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Recursive Self-Improvement of AI Without Comprehensive Review and Alignment - Ray Schroeder, Inside Higher Ed
In the high-tech, high-competition AI field, we are seeing new versions of models rolled out by the frontier companies (OpenAI, Google and Anthropic) every month and a half. I included a Release Cadence Breakdown report by Google Gemini in the “Online: Trending Now” column just a few weeks ago. The speed and intensity of the research and development required to keep up such a release schedule has taken a toll on the necessary, thorough testing of reliability and alignment that we all expect must be done by reliable creators. It is important to remember that this field is breaking new ground in creating models that can generate original concepts, often by mimicking approaches humans have taken in the past. Humans, of course, are not always the best models of safe, generous and legal behaviors. That’s where the problems arise.
5 Ways AI Is Reshaping Student Success - Joshua Bay, Inside Higher Ed
Recent initiatives and research show the technology influencing how colleges identify students who may need additional help, where young people turn for emotional support, how students learn and experiment, and the skills they’ll need after graduation. At the same time, students themselves have expressed concerns about their dependence on AI and how well their institutions are responding to its rapid rise. Here are five ways colleges are drawing on artificial intelligence to reshape student success.
Higher Ed Groups Push Back on Trump’s New Accreditation Rule - Jessica Blake, Inside Higher Ed
A number of accreditation agencies, student advocacy groups and university lobbyists say they see value in the underlying goals of President Trump’s proposed overhaul to accreditation policy, particularly the efforts to put more weight on student outcomes and cut back on red tape. But many doubt that rewriting higher ed’s quality-assurance regulations is the right vehicle to reach those goals. “While [we] support and champion many of the proposed rulemaking’s goals, we believe the department should reexamine whether the accreditation process is the appropriate mechanism to achieve some of our shared priorities, especially in the context of … ED’s stated objective of Returning Education to the States,” the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities wrote in its public comment on the rule.
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
OpenAI Says It Will Not Release Newest A.I. Model Over Safety Concerns - Sheera Frenkel, NY Times
OpenAI said on Monday that it would not release its newest artificial intelligence model because of security concerns raised by its researchers, in the company’s latest move to slow down the pace of its technology. During the testing phase for the new model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra, it showed high levels of what the company saw as deception, or a willingness to mislead users about its actions. The model was also willing to go beyond the original scope of what it was asked to do, without checking back for directions or instructions. “For anything regarding safety and alignment, there’s a trade-off,” said Saachi Jain, the head of safety systems at OpenAI. The new model “didn’t quite meet the bar in terms of staying within scope and authorization, and how it communicates back to the user about the type of work it’s done.”
Rutgers Law School launches part-time online J.D. program - National Jurist
Rutgers Law School is launching a part-time, hybrid Online J.D. program featuring live online evening classes, flexible asynchronous coursework and in-person learning opportunities, becoming the 23rd ABA-accredited law school to offer an online J.D. option. Students will take live classes two to three evenings per week and travel to Rutgers Law’s Camden campus for eight required in-person experiences throughout the program. The four- to five-day sessions are designed to build practical lawyering skills, professional identity, relationships with faculty and classmates and connections to the Rutgers Law community. Johanna Bond, dean of Rutgers Law School, said students can now pursue a law degree without putting their careers or personal commitments on hold.
How should AI be regulated? - Claire Goudreau, Johns Hopkins University
Gillian Hadfield | Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of AI Alignment and Governance said "The key thing that happened was humans stopped writing all of the rules about how the computer was supposed to behave and figured out a method called machine learning where the machine, the computer, would write its own program. People will talk about guardrails, safety. We don't know what those should be. Technology moves faster than governments do. That's the pacing problem and the reason to slow down. ... We absolutely need our research universities to be taking this on as a mission because this is where the brain trust needs to be for how we figure out how to make this go well."
https://hub.jhu.edu/2026/09/17/next-conversations-governing-ai/
Monday, September 28, 2026
White House Moves to Take Control of NIH Grants - Carolyn Y. JohnsonSheryl Gay Stolberg and Tony Romm, NY Times
The White House has begun drafting a new executive order that could further cement President Trump’s ability to control billions of dollars in scientific grants funded by the National Institutes of Health. Discussed at a highly contentious meeting at the White House on Friday, the directive aims to create a new external committee with the power to veto awards in the nation’s vast biomedical research portfolio that do not conform to Mr. Trump’s political agenda, according to people with knowledge of the effort. The meeting was first reported by The Washington Post. Officials at the Office of Management and Budget, which is drafting the executive order, declined to comment. A spokesman for the N.I.H., Joshua Pradko, declined to discuss details of the meeting.
4-year visa cap for international students halted by federal judge - Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive
A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s rule limiting international student visas to four years, a regulatory change that would have taken effect Tuesday. In his 48-page ruling, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor said a lawsuit against DHS is “likely to succeed” on several grounds and that colleges would suffer “immediate irreparable harm” if the rule took effect during the case. Among the issues Saylor flagged were concerns that the rule could be used inappropriately by the Trump administration. “It is not difficult to imagine how that system might be abused to punish those whose viewpoints or research are disfavored by the officials making the decision — or, indeed, punish disfavored institutions,” Saylor said.
Pipeline needed: Every metro area now faces a workforce shortage - Alcino Donadel, University Business
Workforce shortages are mounting across the country and in major job categories, requiring educators, employers and policymakers to strengthen class-to-career pipelines. Every U.S. metro area is projected to lack qualified workers in at least one major job function through 2034, according to new research from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. Nearly half of the 55 regions, including Atlanta, Detroit, and Seattle, will experience talent gaps in every work category. The center forecasted the number of jobs that will require a certificate or associate’s degree and that offer above-average starting wages and long-term growth. Those benchmarks are $42,500 for median entry-level salaries and $67,500 at mid-career.
Friday, September 25, 2026
The most versatile college majors: Which degrees help grads adapt to a changing job market? - Investopedia, University Business
As hiring has declined across nearly every field, new data suggests that liberal arts graduates may be best suited to adapt. LinkedIn provided an analysis of its hiring data to Investopedia, comparing hiring rates and versatility across the 20 most popular majors among recent bachelor’s degree graduates. The analysis compares the LinkedIn hiring rate for each major’s core industries in April 2026 versus December 2019. Versatility measures the share of those who graduated from 2022–2024 and are working outside of their major’s top industries.
Employment patterns are now improving for young workers without degrees - Erik Sherman, University Business
The most pronounced shift has occurred among workers ages 22 to 34. Burning Glass Institute’s analysis found that, for roughly two decades, unemployment trends for workers with and without college degrees generally moved in tandem when measured through a 212-month moving average for people age 16 and older by education level. That relationship began to change around 2023. By 2025, workers with college degrees were experiencing worse unemployment trends relative to peers without college degrees.
At Georgetown University dialogue, future of artificial intelligence seen as ‘something we have to tackle together’ - Mark Zimmermann, Catholic Standard
In a week when tech leaders said the artificial intelligence industry needs to slow its race to an uncertain future that some warn may be apocalyptic, Georgetown University hosted a Sept. 9 discussion on “AI, Catholic Social Teaching, and Pope Leo’s Invitation to Dialogue with the World.” The dialogue, sponsored by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, drew upon Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV’s May 2026 encyclical letter that was subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” Speakers emphasized that the pope’s letter offered a clarion call for moral guidance and reflection among all stakeholders, including community members, on the best way to move forward with AI.
Thursday, September 24, 2026
OPINION: We’ve been treating college as a career plan, but it’s failing too many students - Pat O'Donnell, Hechinger Report
Georgetown’s ROI data shows that associate degrees and certificates often deliver a higher return on investment than bachelor’s degrees in the first 10 years after completion, although the data also shows that ROI for bachelor’s degrees pulls ahead at 15 years and then widens the gap thereafter. That nuance matters: For students who need economic traction now, shorter-term credentials can be the smarter first move. The “college for all” movement, while well-intentioned, has created a false binary between academic preparedness and workforce skills. Programs like Cherry Creek’s not only improve engagement in high school and college-going rates but also offer a more defined pathway into the workforce.
Is Overreliance on AI Causing Agency Decay? - Cornelia C. Walther, Knowledge at Wharton
People tested it, teased it, challenged it, praised it, feared it, and shared screenshots. Three and a half years later, the novelty has become infrastructure. AI now sits inside search engines, office software, customer-service platforms, coding environments, writing tools, and corporate workflows. That shift has created a new managerial problem: agency decay. Agency decay is the gradual erosion of a person’s ability and willingness to observe carefully, think independently, choose deliberately, and act responsibly. It does not arise because AI is inherently harmful. It arises when convenience becomes the default setting for cognition. A tool that first helps us think can begin to think around us, then for us, then without us noticing what has been weakened.
From Search to Strategy: What Student AI Use Means for the Future of Academic Libraries - EDUCAUSE
While many academic librarians worry that artificial intelligence (AI) may reduce student engagement, research suggests a different story: students are integrating AI into their research workflows while continuing to rely on libraries for trusted sources and deeper scholarly inquiry. This interview features: Amy Deschenes, Interim Director of UX and Discovery, Harvard University and Meg McMahon, User Experience Researcher, Harvard University.
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