Artificial intelligence (AI) is playing a growing role in society, which has ultimately led to its incorporation into higher education.1, 2 There is often concern regarding the use of AI in higher education, especially in how students use AI to complete assignments, which can lead to a direct violation of academic integrity. However, AI and higher education can also be a powerful combination, when optimally applied, that boosts the education students receive.1, 2
The transformative impact of artificial intelligence in higher education extends beyond the classroom. It improves administrative efficiency, freeing up time for a professor to better support students.1 AI also enhances learning by offering realistic clinical scenarios without the risk of hands-on applications.2
These innovations equip students for evolving healthcare roles. At the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences (USAHS), we embrace this shift with AI-driven simulations, chatbots, VR and remote patient monitoring to boost training and clinical readiness.3
AI is reshaping higher education, highlighting the need for academia to maximize its potential. Since students have already embraced these technologies, more institutions will benefit from a thoughtful and balanced approach to integrating generative AI in higher education.4
What Opportunities Are There for AI in Higher Education?
As it stands, there is immense opportunity regarding the applications of artificial intelligence in higher education, especially to expand each student’s learning capacity.5 Here are key areas where AI can demonstrate its strengths:
Personalized Learning Experiences
Since each student learns uniquely, AI in higher education enables professors to create personalized learning experiences with ease, enhancing student engagement.3 With AI, adaptive learning platforms can tailor their content to individual student needs, offering extra assistance where students need it and facilitating a more interactive learning experience.5
AI can also be leveraged in education through tutoring services that provide instant feedback and guidance to the students, further personalizing their learning experience.5, 6
Streamlined Administrative Tasks
Specific administrative tasks, such as admissions, grading and scheduling, can be repetitive and timely. Bringing together AI and higher education, the tool can help automate these tasks so that leaders in higher education can focus on key duties, such as connecting with and educating students.1 Furthermore, AI chatbots can efficiently address common student inquiries, allowing professors to focus on personalized support.7
Advanced Analytics for Student Success
Artificial intelligence in higher education can be used to identify students at risk of falling behind or dropping out of school, enabling early interventions that then increase the odds of student success.8 Additionally, AI education tools can help continuously track student academic progress and optimize their learning outcomes by identifying areas where there are opportunities for improvement and notifying the appropriate parties.8 This allows professors, advisors and students to take proactive measures to maintain academic success.
Generative AI in Higher Education for Content Creation
When creating teaching materials, simulations and virtual labs, generative AI in higher education can help professors overcome challenges with creativity.2 Generative AI enhances student learning and creativity by providing flexible, personalized experiences, enabling more engaging content that enriches education and improves learning capacity.4
The Benefits of AI in Higher Education
Artificial intelligence and higher education have many potential synergies. AI, by personalizing learning experiences and aiding content creation, can help boost student engagement and optimize learning outcomes.5 This can improve academic achievement, increase student retention and enhance reasoning and critical thinking skills. 4, 6
The capacity for creativity also sees no bounds when AI is integrated, as it can help to create innovative teaching materials, simulations and virtual labs. 1, 2 AI, combined with VR simulations, builds future practitioner confidence, problem-solving skills and clinical readiness by providing realistic, hands-on training that prepares them for real-world healthcare challenges.4
Artificial intelligence in higher education can support inclusive education by addressing unique learning styles. AI can identify a student’s preferred learning style and then adapt the course content accordingly.9 AI also helps increase accessibility to resources for those with disabilities. The adaptability of AI can help highlight learning challenges, allowing professors to identify areas of need and offer education in a learning style that best fits each student.10 Furthermore, AI in higher education can help reduce language barriers, allowing more students to pursue an education.10
What are the Issues with AI in Higher Education?
Despite the benefits that combining AI and higher education can offer, there is reasonable hesitation in embracing AI because of the challenges and ethical considerations. The shift to embrace AI in higher education involves risk. However, healthcare educators have the opportunity to position themselves at the heart of the AI revolution, guiding it in the right direction rather than staying on the sidelines.4
Data Privacy and Security
One of the benefits of AI in higher education is that it can aid the grading process while also being used to offer personalized learning. However, this raises a concern about protecting student data, particularly if the AI tools are used without student consent.
Equity and Access
A digital divide already exists in higher education, and artificial intelligence in higher education may widen it. Specifically, these AI tools can be immensely beneficial in aiding the student experience and offering assistance as they complete their work, but underserved populations may not have access to technology that allows access to these services.12 As a result, varying access to AI tools can lead to unequal learning opportunities, with some students unable to benefit from the same resources.
Academic Integrity and AI
One of the main concerns regarding AI and higher education involves its threat to academic integrity. If students use AI to generate their assignments, they do not complete the work themselves, which is not only a plagiarism concern but also impedes their learning capacity. Specifically, AI can be viewed as an easy out for students, undermining their critical thinking skills.
In addition to creating guidelines to prevent AI misuse and plagiarism, universities should prioritize fostering higher-order learning and problem-solving with generative AI. This requires adapting assignments: for example, while an essay prompt once tested students’ analytical and creative skills, it now only measures their ability to use AI tools like Microsoft Copilot or ChatGPT.4
How is Generative AI Used in Higher Education?
Generative AI in higher education offers a way to create new educational content. The result can be a high-quality education that engages students and increases their motivation.14
Through generative AI, educational institutions can simulate real-world scenarios for healthcare, engineering and other fields, providing students with hands-on experience.15,16 It can mimic a clinical case or explore an engineering challenge. Using generative AI, the modes by which students can learn are limitless. As students transition into fieldwork, they are confident in their abilities.
Generative AI also allows for a restructuring of education. Rather than rely on a student’s ability to recall information, generative AI in higher education helps them focus more on higher-order learning and problem-solving, allowing them to fully apply their skill set. AI can serve as a tool that enhances student abilities rather than replacing their critical thinking and creativity.
The Future of AI and Higher Education
When utilized effectively, the combination of artificial intelligence and education has the potential to significantly boost higher education, preparing a workforce ready to transition seamlessly from student to professional.
One of the primary benefits offered by AI is the ability to create virtual and augmented realities in learning environments, allowing students to hone their skills in a safe space without the risk of harm. Health sciences’ students can practice caring for patients using real-life scenarios.17
This can increase student confidence as they practice real cases, and build real-world readiness, making for an easier transition post-graduation.
AI in higher education also makes hybrid teaching environments more feasible. Instructor-led lessons can be combined with AI-assisted tutoring and assignments, providing more practice for students.5, 6
Ultimately, with the introduction of artificial intelligence in higher education, we can expect a shift that places a greater emphasis on higher-order thinking and complex problem-solving.4
Case Studies and Real-World Examples
When considering the future of AI in higher education, we can draw inspiration from how AI is currently being used at USAHS.
USAHS pairs AI and higher education, using AI tools in telehealth sessions and pro-bono clinical experiences. Students are trained using AI applications to enhance their ability to assess and monitor remote patients, which may include sensors and smart devices that can capture heart rate, activity levels, sleep cycles, movement patterns and key vitals. This program breaks down barriers to access and improves healthcare delivery.
When used as a tool, AI in higher education also allows educators to restructure their tasks, stretching the bounds of critical thinking skills. Rather than asking students to complete an essay that tests their analytic and creative abilities, at USAHS, students were assigned a project where they used AI tools to assist them in creating a blueprint for a Parkinson’s community program and then presented the idea to their class. In this way, USAHS ensures that AI complements, rather than replaces, the student mind, serving as a tool they can continue to use beyond their studies.
Harnessing the Potential of AI in Higher Education and Beyond
Artificial intelligence, when integrated optimally, can transform higher education, whether taking on repetitive administrative tasks or personalizing learning. The limits of what students can be taught when AI is incorporated into their curriculum appear limitless, increasing their confidence in real-life challenges and preparing them for a smooth transition into the workforce.
The key to AI in higher education is its proper application. There are concerns regarding its ethical use, especially regarding sharing student data, and its equitable applications in cases where some students can access the AI tools and others cannot.
Are you ready to explore how USAHS prepares you for the evolving healthcare landscape? Request information to learn about our graduate health sciences programs and how we prepare students to be future-focused practitioners.
Sources
- “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning Insights and Recommendations,” Department of Education Office of Educational Technology, May 2023, https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/documents/ai-report/ai-report.pdf.
- Mir, M. M., et al, “Application of Artificial Intelligence in Medical Education: Current Scenario and Future Perspectives,” PubMed, 2023: 11(3), 133–140, https://doi.org/10.30476/jamp.2023.98655.1803.
- Palmer, K., “How Will AI Influence Higher Ed in 2025,” Inside Higher Ed, December 19, 2024, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2024/12/19/how-will-ai-influence-higher-ed-2025.
- McGee, E., “Just What the Doctor Ordered: AI-Ready Graduates,” EdTech Digest, December 17, 2024, https://www.edtechdigest.com/2024/12/17/just-what-the-doctor-ordered-ai-ready-graduates/.
- Ayeni, O. O., et al, “AI in education: A review of personalized learning and educational technology,” GSC Advanced Research and Reviews, 2024: 18(2), 261–271, https://doi.org/10.30574/gscarr.2024.18.2.0062.
- Muh. Putra Pratama, Rigel Sampelolo, & Lura, H., “REVOLUTIONIZING EDUCATION: HARNESSING THE POWER OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR PERSONALIZED LEARNING,” KLASIKAL JOURNAL of EDUCATION LANGUAGE TEACHING and SCIENCE, 2023: 5(2), 350–357, https://doi.org/10.52208/klasikal.v5i2.877.
- Labadze, L., Grigolia, M., & Machaidze, L., “Role of AI chatbots in education: systematic literature review,” International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 2023: 20(1), https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00426-1.
- Embarak, O. H., & Hawarna, S. “Automated AI-driven System for Early Detection of At-risk Students,” Procedia Computer Science, 2024: 231, 151–160, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procs.2023.12.187.
- Ezzaim, A., Dahbi, A., Aqqal, A. et al, “AI-based learning style detection in adaptive learning systems: a systematic literature review,” Journal of Computers in Education, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-024-00328-9.
- Aslam, S., Safina, Faisal, O., & Kamal, H., “Analyzing AI’s Role in Promoting Diversity and Inclusivity within Educational Systems, Addressing different Learning Styles and Needs,” Review of Applied Management and Social Sciences, 2024: 7(4), 1099–1113, https://doi.org/10.47067/ramss.v7i4.446.
- Lan Huang, “Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Education: Student Privacy and Data Protection,” Science Insights Education Frontiers, June 2023, 16(2):2577-2587, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/372125102_Ethics_of_Artificial_Intelligence_in_Education_Student_Privacy_and_Data_Protection.
- Blackmon, S., “Bridging the Education Divide: How AI Can Support Underserved Communities,” Tech to the Rescue, AI for Changemakers, November 19, 2024, https://techtotherescue.org/blog/2024/11/19/bridging-the-education-divide-how-ai-can-support-underserved-communities.
- Himendra Balalle and Sachini Pannilage, “Reassessing academic integrity in the age of AI: A systematic literature review on AI and academic integrity,” Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 2025, 11(101299), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101299.
- Omid Noroozi, Soleimani, S., Mohammadreza Farrokhnia, & Seyyed Kazem Banihashem, “Generative AI in Education: Pedagogical, Theoretical, and Methodological Perspectives,” International Journal of Technology in Education, 2024: 7(3), 373–385, https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1438410.
- Nobuyasu Komasawa, & Masanao Yokohira, “Simulation-Based Education in the Artificial Intelligence Era,” Cureus, 2023, https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.40940.
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