Employers and Students Are Concerned About Being Ready for an AI Workplace—Where Are Colleges?

As institutions and employers from Amazon to RNL quickly move forward with implementing AI in a myriad of operations, there is a rising concern among enrolled—and especially graduating—college students: How marketable are they to employers who are suddenly putting a premium on prospective employees with AI skills and experience? As institutions ponder how AI should be allowed in the classroom, students are worrying that they may graduate unprepared for the world of work.

While launching courses on AI is a good start, colleges and universities would do even better for their students by immediately beginning to weave the use of AI into coursework. This is the practical application that are a hallmark of some of the best programs preparing students for professional life.

Washington State University’s Carson School of Business recently surveyed working professionals on their preparedness for the use of AI in the workplace (more on that below), but they are not stopping at conducting research. Debbie Compeau, interim dean, says the school is not holding back on infusing their curriculum with AI:

“We’ve convened a working group around generative AI to integrate these advancements into our existing programs and explore how AI can transform business education. When we embrace the potential of AI to create value and transform work—while also addressing legitimate concerns regarding its use and impact—we create a learning environment that allows our students to excel in an AI-driven future.”

A growing divide

RNL’s latest online student research indicates that almost half of all students use a generative AI platform at least once a week and nearly 20 percent of Gen Z use one daily. Upwards of 40 percent of online students would also welcome access to a virtual research assistant (50%), a virtual writing assistant (44%), or a personalized study coach (42%). An even more recent study (June 2024) indicates that 51 percent of college students say AI has helped them get better grades and even more say it has helped them be more efficient.

Meanwhile, a new study of college faculty indicates that while 40 percent are familiar with generative AI, only 14 percent are confident in how to use it in their teaching. About the same proportion indicate that they have used AI at least once in their work—most frequently to help them design course materials. The study authors indicate that academic integrity and related concerns are contributing to this “uncertainty and hostility.” While this may be understandable, it is also leaving their students without experiences that may be vital to their career success.

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The employer perspective

A recent survey of more than 1,300 employers indicates that 73 percent of organizations indicate that hiring new employees with AI skills has become a number-one priority. Because many employers are struggling to find qualified candidates, respondents also reported raising starting salaries by as much as 43 percent (for sales and marketing positions) and not below 35 percent (for human resources positions.) This compounds what Cengage reported in 2022: 65 percent of employers were already struggling (generally) to find qualified job candidates.

Higher Ed Dive reports that Amazon, while reportedly eliminating several hundred jobs in its Alexa division, has recently launched an initiative to provide AI skills and training to as many as 2 million people by 2025. Initiatives like this represent yet another challenge for institutions: as GenZ questions the return on investment of a college degree, and demonstrate receptivity to training from non-higher education sources, institutional resistance to incorporating AI into their curriculum could further erode traditional enrollment.

Finally, a new McKinsey”s Global Institute report crunched a massive amount of data to investigate how AI is affecting the post-pandemic economic recovery and which occupations are most vulnerable to AI advancements. Among dozens of useful insights—which higher education institutions should consider as they evaluate their programming—is the fact that unlike pre-AI discussions about the impact of automation (which invariably focused on low skill occupations losing jobs), AI is likely to affect some of the most highly educated occupations in the world.

The student perspective

Employees surveyed in the Washington State University survey cited above indicate that they are concerned about their mid- to long-term viability in the workplace as AI takes center stage. Nearly half (48 percent) indicate that they worry that without AI skills they will be “left behind.” More than 80 percent of these respondents—all of whom are currently feeling the pressure of AI—think that college graduates should be prepared to use AI when they start their first job.

More than half of recent college graduates recently indicated that the growth of AI has made them question their preparedness for the workforce, and only 55 percent are confident that their job will not be replaced by AI. In another study, by Inside Higher Education and College Pulse’s Student Voices nearly three-quarters of currently enrolled college students think that their institutions should be preparing them for AI in the workplace.

The Inside Higher Education/College Pulse study also indicates that these concerns (14 percent said this is significantly influencing their course/major choices, but it is on the minds of far more students. More than one-third of class of 2024 respondents said that AI is affecting what they choose to study, while subsequent graduating classes are even more acutely aware—with 64 percent of those in the class of 2027 saying that AI is playing a role in what they choose to study.

Implications for institutions

If the old adage “we lead by example” has merit, institutions must move forward in incorporating AI into operations of all sorts. Leveraging generative AI to answer student questions (think “chatbot.4.0”) in order to provide more timely responses to common (or, increasingly more sophisticated) questions or linking your student data to a large language model that will allow you to directly ask your data any question you may need an answer to as you make strategic decisions are only a few ways in which institutions can “walk the walk” that their students need them to be on. And these are things that are on their way to you—very soon—from RNL itself!

This is only the beginning though. Institutions need to move beyond the concerns that students will use AI to cheat and really delve into both creating courses that will provide students real-time experience in applying AI in career-relevant ways and weaving AI into the full breadth of the work that students do while enrolled in their courses. Harvard Graduate School of Education has recently been considering all of this. Lecturer Houman Harouni recently said that educators must “help the next generation face the reality of the world and develop instruments and ways of navigating this reality with integrity.” If this is the role of the educator, today there is no way around preparing students to use AI (responsibly) by the example set in the classroom. His closing thought was one so many of us must keep front and center: “You have to stop thinking that you can teach exactly the way you used to teach when the basic medium has changed.”

RNL is at the forefront of AI solutions that will advance institutional success—predicated on the idea that institutions must meet not only met the technological expectations of today’s students, but also their expectation for customized, personalized, and speedy experiences. RNL is helping institutions ensure that this happens. Learn more about our RNL Edge AI solutions and how they can help your institution.