I published my own review of higher education here: https://www.tonybates.ca/2025/12/27/a-review-of-higher-education-in-2025/.
I messed up my initial Chat-GPT response, running it on the Chat-GPT tool on my web site. However, this only trawls my own web site. When I ran the same question on the general Chat-GPT tool today, I got the following response (you will see it is much closer to my personal posting):
Chat-GPT’s response:
1) Major Policy and Federal Shifts in the U.S. (Including Legal & Funding Battles)
Why it matters: Federal policy in the United States in 2025 had transformative impact on higher education institutions’ operations, academic freedom, immigration policy, and funding.
- New federal actions pressured universities on issues such as DEI, academic content, and compliance — including proposals like the Compact for Academic Excellence tying federal funds to ideological commitments.Wikipedia
- The U.S. Department of Justice sued Virginia over laws granting in-state tuition to undocumented students, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of students and setting precedents about access to education and immigration law.Reuters
- Broader federal budget proposals sought deep cuts to research, financial aid, and student programs — undermining key funding streams for universities and research.Forbes
- Public opinion in the U.S. showed growing discontent with the higher education system, indicating political polarization and debate over the role of colleges in society.Pew Research Center
Impact: These shifts affected institutional autonomy, finances, program priorities, and campus life — from administration to classroom content.
2) Enrollment and International Student Trends — Decline & Redistribution
Why it matters: Trends in student movement and enrollment are fundamental to the future of universities’ finances, diversity, and global standing.
- Data from multiple sources revealed that U.S. and Canadian institutions saw declines in international student enrollments in 2025, driven in large part by visa policies, immigration restrictions, and global competition.ICEF Monitor
- At the same time, overall enrollment trends for U.S. colleges showed some rebounds in domestic enrollment in 2025, though the broader pattern still reflected sectoral stress and geographic variation.Bestcolleges.com
- These enrollment challenges have economic and cultural implications — international students typically contribute substantial tuition revenue and campus diversity.
Impact: Lower international numbers threaten research capacity, campus diversity, and financial sustainability, particularly at institutions heavily reliant on out-of-country students.
3) AI & Technology Integration Across Higher Education
Why it matters: 2025 marked a major inflection point in the adoption of AI and related technologies across North American colleges and universities — reshaping teaching, learning, and institutional operations.
- Artificial intelligence moved beyond pilot projects into core infrastructure in many institutions, supporting academic, administrative, and student support functions.Forbes
- AI tools were increasingly used for personalized learning, administrative automation, student services, and curricular enhancements — fundamentally altering practices and expectations in post-secondary education.Campus Technology
- The trend also sparked debates about ethics, academic integrity, and governance, creating a new policy frontier for higher education leaders.
Impact: The integration of AI is not just a pedagogical trend — it affects institutional strategy, labor models (e.g., automation of routine tasks), and future workforce preparation for students.
Honorable mentions
Additional developments that were important but not quite at the top three:
- Changing perceptions of the value of college among Americans, with polls showing declining belief in higher ed’s importance.Gallup.com
- State-level legislative actions such as Ohio’s higher education law impacting DEI and faculty practices.Wikipedia
- Economic and affordability trends, including discussions about financial aid reform and cost pressures (with federal changes taking effect in 2026).The Washington Post
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
Thanx for this.
You gave as the subject for your own review: ‘the three major developments in higher education during 2025, at least from a North American perspective’.
While immigration policy in Canada is very important for Canada, I am not sure how important it is to Mexico. Even if one adopted the common practice of restricting ‘North America’ to Canada and the USA, I would have considered the trend to be the implications of immigration restrictions for higher education, which would raise the similarities and differences of immigration restrictions in Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere.
Your question to Chat-GPT seems to be somewhat different ‘what are the three major developments in higher education during 2025’, omitting the ‘North American’ perspective. While I find Chat-GPT’s response very weak, its first development ‘Curriculum reform and high-level skills development’ prompts me to note the displacement of higher education policy in the UK and Australia from the development of knowledge or even expertise to the accumulation of ‘skills’. I would be interested in how prevalent this is in Canada.
On a Sunday morning, I found your two posts and listened to Steve Levitt interview Michael Crow of ASU. I’ve also just finished the Coursera/Google course on prompting. What a range of perspectives!
Politics
Politics in Canada sound nearly as disheartening as in the US.
I offer the following relating to the ChatGPT response. If you had adjusted the ChatGPT prompt to address political impacts on higher education in Canada and the US, I’ll bet it would have come closer to your views. LLMs need context and focus.
AI and Higher Education
After listening to Michael Crow and then visiting the ASU website, my gloomy feelings about the future of Higher Education in the age of AI have brightened considerably. They are making remarkable changes and are explicitly spreading the word through their consortium. There is at least one model that offers a way to build on AI in the existing system, rather than be overwhelmed by it. Perhaps we don’t need to start afresh.
Nice experiment.
I tried the same question on ChatGPT (5.2) and got a completely different response (note that I have an $20/month account). https://chatgpt.com/share/6951702e-d284-800b-b245-d9ab36dcc489
Thanks, Stephen, James and Gavin.
In a rush, I messed up the Chat-GPT response. I have a Chat-GPT model that runs just on my web site and I used this instead of the wider Chat-GPT model, which would have returned something like Stephen’s response. Also many models do not take into account information posted in the last two years, so they would not necessarily pick up latest developments. And yes, you have to be very careful in how you actually word the question and it may need further follow-up. Just goes to show – you have to be very careful how you use AI models – and also maybe there is still a role for humans after all!