Generative AI Availability, Grades, and Student Satisfaction at a Large University
2026-07-23 • Computers and Society
Computers and Society
AI summaryⓘ
The authors studied whether students use generative AI (like ChatGPT) to avoid learning but still get better grades, especially in courses where homework and essays matter more than in-class exams. Using data from many courses at a large university before and after ChatGPT's release, they found no clear increase in grades or improvement in students' understanding due to AI use. There was a small effect on student interest only if pandemic impacts were considered short-term. Overall, the authors found little evidence that generative AI made grades go up unfairly or lowered student satisfaction.
generative AIhigher educationacademic performanceChatGPTdifferences-in-differencesassessment typesstudent satisfactionCOVID-19 pandemic effectssyllabus analysismachine learning pipeline
Authors
James M. Zumel Dumlao, Meng Wang, Zhonghan Xie, Junyao Hu, Ivan Bar, George Chaney, Henry Gold, Misha Teplitskiy
Abstract
The spread of generative AI (GenAI) in higher education has raised concerns that students offload cognitive effort to AI, earning high grades without learning. If this "GenAI substitution hypothesis" is true, grades should rise disproportionately in GenAI-susceptible courses--those relying more on assessments like take-home problem sets and essays rather than in-class exams. Substitution could also affect student satisfaction, measured here as self-reported understanding and interest in the subject, which prior research links to assessments. We test the substitution hypothesis using syllabus and administrative data from a large U.S. university (2015-2025; 156,135 students; 87,936 course offerings). We measure courses' GenAI susceptibility using a human-validated LLM pipeline to extract assessment types from syllabi, and use a differences-in-differences design comparing outcomes across courses before and after ChatGPT's release, while modeling COVID-19 pandemic effects as either persistent or transient. We find no significant differential effect of GenAI availability on grades overall or among previously lower-performing students. Effects on self-reported understanding are likewise insignificant; effects on interest are significant only assuming transient pandemic effects. Our findings temper concerns that GenAI inflates grades and reduces students' satisfaction.