{"id":62702,"date":"2026-06-04T21:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/62702\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T21:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T21:10:07","slug":"why-generative-ai-could-change-how-education-pays-off-for-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/62702\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Generative AI could change how education pays off for students"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. Sign up for the Ideas newsletter<\/a> to follow our work.<\/p>\n

For more than a century, American education has been transformed by technology. <\/p>\n

Various technological shifts have created the modern \u201cknowledge economy,\u201d in which workers with the most years of formal schooling tend to be the best-paid. Economists refer to this<\/a> dynamic as the race between education and technology, and it\u2019s why each generation of Americans has remained<\/a> in school longer than the last. Our current education system has been built around this reality. <\/p>\n

Enter generative AI, which is not like the technologies that automated parts of farm or factory work, and might not be like the computer or the internet. Instead, AI threatens to upend a paradigm that has existed for generations, in which the economy adapts to new technologies by demanding more education. In theory, AI could do the opposite by replacing large swaths of white-collar workers. That\u2019s why this moment feels so perilous for students and schools.<\/p>\n

To be clear, no one really knows how AI will change the economy. But at this moment of uncertainty it\u2019s worth looking back at the historical interplay between technology, the economy, and schooling. Understanding how technology has already transformed education can help understand how it might do so again and why the onset of the AI era feels so different.<\/p>\n

Get more like this delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n

Hear from key voices in education and read expert analysis of the big ideas shaping American schools. Sign up now to get the Chalkbeat Ideas newsletter sent to you for free.<\/p>\n

For the last century plus, technology in various forms has laid waste to certain farm, manufacturing, blue-collar, and other middle-income jobs. Instead, demand has grown for highly educated white-collar workers. <\/p>\n

During this time, American schools and universities have raced to keep up with technology by expanding access. High school education opened up to most teenagers in the early 20th century. The growth of college education followed in later decades. During this time, the U.S. was far ahead of other countries in making schooling broadly accessible, which helped turn the country into an economic powerhouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause the American people were the most educated in the world, they were in the best position to invent, be entrepreneurial, and produce goods and services using advanced technologies,\u201d wrote Harvard economists Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz, in their classic 2008 book \u201cThe Race Between Education and Technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pressure for a more educated workforce continued apace in the following decades. In the 1990s, President Bill Clinton liked to quip, \u201cwhat you earn depends on what you learn.\u201d This was a neat encapsulation of the new economic order. <\/p>\n

In response, politicians of various stripes advanced policies aimed at preparing students for postsecondary education and knowledge-intensive work. Kindergarten classes reduced<\/a> a focus on play and began emphasizing academic content. Schools were held accountable for test scores and graduation rates. High schools expanded college prep programs. Colleges began recruiting more students who wouldn\u2019t have considered higher education previously.<\/p>\n

\"AGraphic shows the average years spent in school for 30-year olds, based on when they were born. (Screengrab from “Beyond the Race between Education and Technology” by Lawrence F. Katz Harvard University and the NBER) <\/p>\n

Ironically, during this time, there was little indication that technology itself was dramatically improving teaching and learning. In fact, there\u2019s been a cycle of hype followed by disappointment<\/a> when the radio, the TV, various \u201cteaching machines<\/a>,\u201d and the computer fail to revolutionize schooling for the better.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the economy\u2019s voracious appetite for highly educated workers was not fully sated. For the last half century, Americans\u2019 years of education have increased, but at a slower pace than in prior decades. Meanwhile, the relative wages of college-educated workers rose steadily<\/a> through the early 2000s. This college wage premium \u2014 the advantage those with a degree have over other workers \u2014 has stopped growing recently but remains at historically high levels.<\/p>\n

This has left a modern economy that is fairly polarized<\/a>. There are many jobs<\/a> that only require a high school education \u2014 like home health aides, retail clerks, warehouse stockers \u2014 but their wages are relatively low. Most well-paid<\/a> professions typically demand a college degree or more: nurses, doctors, lawyers, college professors, business managers, accountants, and engineers.<\/p>\n

This economic and educational revolution of the last several decades has led to vastly increased productivity and has benefited<\/a> well-credentialed workers and the educational institutions that provide those skills and degrees. But it has not been kind<\/a> to less-educated Americans and has likely contributed<\/a> to growing income inequality.<\/p>\n

The existential question now is whether generative artificial intelligence will change this economic paradigm. AI can already produce research, writing, and analysis previously assumed to be only doable by well-educated workers. One recent study<\/a> had both educated and less-educated people complete a workplace-like problem-solving exercise. Without AI, the highly educated group did much better. With AI, that edge shrunk substantially. That\u2019s why some commentators prophesy a great \u201cdeskilling,\u201d in which many well-paid white-collar workers get replaced<\/a> by AI. <\/p>\n

Education has value beyond its economic return. But if that return erodes, demand for the current offerings of American schooling, especially higher education, would likely decline \u2014 potentially leading to unprecedented disruption in an industry that has long assumed a growing customer base. <\/p>\n

Yet this is hardly an inevitability. Maybe educated workers will be best able to avail themselves of AI. Or maybe the technology will wipe out some white-collar jobs, but expand and create others. Perhaps AI will mostly supplement rather than replace office work or it will prove less useful than some think. <\/p>\n

While some claim that AI has already decimated the job prospects of young college graduates, the weight of<\/a> the data does<\/a> not support<\/a> this narrative<\/a>. <\/p>\n

At this point, then, we simply don\u2019t know how AI will reshape the economy and the jobs available to Americans. This leaves students and educators in the profoundly difficult position of preparing<\/a> for an economic future that feels more uncertain than ever before. <\/p>\n

Matt Barnum is Chalkbeat\u2019s ideas editor. Reach him at mbarnum@chalkbeat.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,25,35807,2962,35808,35806],"class_list":["post-62702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-beyond-the-race-between-education-and-technology","tag-harvard","tag-lawrence-katz","tag-screengrab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}