Students

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, graduate student Jonah Prousky shares his observations that students who use AI minimally, or not at all, for their writing, tend to score higher on their written work. “In this environment, where a professor or teaching assistant reads dozens of essays, one after another, AI-generated writing is not only easy to detect but can be terribly monotonous to read,” writes Prousky. “It’s the students who sound most like themselves, by contrast, who delight all the more.”  

Forbes’ Lisa Chambers highlights MIT as one of the “12 top colleges reinventing education for the AI era.” “At Forbes’ No. 1-ranked college in the nation—and one of the world’s leading technology schools—AI is hardly confined to a single degree,” writes Chambers. “MIT’s undergraduate offerings range from machine learning, computer vision and natural language processing to robotics, deep-learning hardware and AI applications in biology and medicine.”  

Boston Globe reporter Jon Chesto spotlights the fall fair event held as part of the MIT x GE Vernova Energy & Climate Alliance, during which, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik shared his enthusiasm for hiring MIT graduates. “Something we talk a lot about inside Vernova is the world is changing very quickly but we need to change quicker and even faster than that so we can lead in the world,” says Strazik. “Over the last year-plus on this campus, we see a lot of opportunities for us to get better through bringing you into the organization.”  

Prof. Dennis Whyte joins Hakeem Oluseyi, host of GBH’s “Particles of Thought,” to discuss cofounding MIT spinoff Commonwealth Fusion Systems from a class assignment that blossomed into actionable research. The students “were not saddled with conventional wisdom” about superconducting technology, says Whyte. In the class, “we were throwing all kinds of crazy ideas at the fridge on this and some of them stuck,” says Whyte. “I’ve had the privilege to see my students succeed. We [professors] have a job where we get an amazing privilege where we get to discover.”  

Forbes’ Afdhel Aziz highlights Extern, a platform that “helps students graduates and career switchers do real projects for companies,” founded by alumnus Matt Wilkerson ‘04, ‘05. “Nearly 90,000 people have used the platform to build experience they can put on a resume and talk about in an interview,” writes Aziz. “I want to work on a problem that really changes someone’s life in a very deep way, says Wilkerson.  

Prof. Samuel Madden joins Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s “Morning Edition,” to discuss the findings of MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training. “Cognitive surrender is the idea that people come to rely too heavily on these AI tools for their learning and they start outsourcing the critical thinking and the development of the foundational tools they think they need to succeed in life, to these AI tools,” says Madden. “It’s not just writing, but we see this [cognitive surrender] in our courses as well.”  

Prof. Asu Ozdaglar, head of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and graduate student Julia Schneider ‘26 speak to Spectrum News about MIT’s new Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making major. “Now is definitely the time to study more AI, not less,” says Schneider. “What we need is a bunch of people that are focused and excited and passionate about deeply understanding why these models do what they do.” She adds: “Ultimately I want to work on technology that ends up helping people.”  

Prof. Eric Klopfer, co-chair of MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training, is spotlighted by The Washington Post’s Susan Svrluga. Klopfer “said in many cases students are turning in homework that is better. And their performance on exams is worse,” writes Svrluga. AI is “the illusion of learning,” says Klopfer.  

Members of MassLive’s “25 Most Influential Innovators of 2026” list, which includes President Sally Kornbluth and a number of other MIT faculty and alumni, gathered at the MIT Museum to “discuss the forces shaping the future of innovation in Massachusetts,” writes reporter Tréa Lavery. “MIT Provost Anantha Chandrakasan said about half of undergraduate students at the school are studying some form of computing, and enrollment in those courses has gone up in recent years, prompting professors and administrators to rethink how they incorporate AI into their teaching,” writes Lavery.  

Members of the MIT community speak to Boston 25 News reporter Lisa Gresci about how they use AI, and their concerns with regulating the technology. Developers should consider, “how AI can help communities so [they are] not just building things, but are also deploying it [with purpose] out in the world,” says graduate student Anku Rani.  

MIT ranks No. 1 in Forbes’ list of America’s top colleges. “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is known for its innovative discoveries in science, research and technology,” writes Forbes. “Just 7% of MIT’s students take out any federal loans, due in part to the university’s generous financial aid,” which allows students from families with income below $200,00 to attend tuition-free. “MIT also ranks at the top of Forbes’ alumni earnings ranking.”  

In a Scientific American article by reporter Joseph Howlett, Prof. Naomi Sweeting discusses the potential pitfalls of consulting artificial intelligence in mathematics. “I view math as part of a vast and beautiful human project,” says Sweeting. “It's this huge endeavor that puts us in communication with thousands of years of human thinking.” 

Prof. Anette “Peko” Hosoi, co-founder of the MIT Sports Lab, and Andrew Byron, assistant coach for the MIT Football team, join Edgar B. Herwick III, host of GBH’s “The Curiosity Desk,” to discuss athletic intelligence and football IQ. “One of the special things about football is that it’s an incredibly complicated game compared to other games because there are very specialized positions,” says Hosoi. “Everybody has a very special role and there are a lot of players on the field at once.”  

MIT’s financial aid offerings, including free tuition for families earning below $200,000 a year, is highlighted by Forbes' Asia Alexander. “Families earning below $100,000 pay nothing toward the full cost of attendance — tuition, housing, dining, fees and an allowance for books and personal expenses are covered,” writes Alexander. “MIT calculates that roughly 80% of American households fall under its tuition-free line.” 

Inside Higher Ed’s Emma Whitford spotlights a new report by MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training that offers recommendations for how AI should be used in education. “Learning works when it’s both challenging and social; knowledge is built through cognitive friction, whether that’s disentangling the steps of a mathematical proof with your study group, adjusting an experiment over and over until it works, or having a spirited argument with a peer (rather than getting ‘the’ answer from AI),” the committee writes.