Education, teaching, academics

Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter Maria Di Mento spotlights how the creation of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing allowed MIT to develop new “interdisciplinary programs to prepare students for an AI-saturated world and help them understand the social and ethical implications of digital technologies.” Prof. Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing, explains that: “MIT realized that effective education in the age of AI has to look different than it has in the past. Traditional siloing of expertise won’t work when AI is expected to touch nearly every part of people’s lives and is changing the way people in disciplines outside of computing are advancing their work.”

For Boston 25, reporter Meagan Drillinger highlights how MIT was named to Stacker’s list of the top colleges in the country for return on investment. MIT is “need-blind and full-need for undergraduate students. Six out of 10 students receive financial aid, and almost 88% of the Class of 2025 graduated debt-free,” notes Drillinger. The average starting salary for 2025 graduates entering industry positions was $145,820.  

In an interview with U.S News & World Report, Prof. Bradford Skow and Prof. Alex Byrne, two of the co-directors of the MIT Civil Discourse project, explain how the effort is aimed at helping students productively debate challenging issues using the Braver Angels format. “Lectures on how to ride a bike are useless; you learn by hopping on and pedaling,” they explain. “Lectures on civil discourse are marginally more effective, but learning how to discuss hard topics with people you disagree with ultimately requires seeing it done and doing it yourself.”

MIT President Sally Kornbluth and Arizona State University President Michael Crow joined forces for a spirited discussion moderated by Washington Post reporter Zachary Goldfarb on the importance of curiosity-driven research, examining how universities are preparing the next generation of scientists to lead in America’s rapidly changing technological landscape. “Many of the things we have in our everyday lives, whether they be medical advances, technological advances, a lot of these things came from 30, 40, 50 years of scientists just trying to figure out how things work,” said Kornbluth. 

Boston Globe reporter Aaron Pressman spotlights MIT startup Liquid AI, along with the various AI efforts underway at MIT as part of The Globe’s 2026 Tech Power Players special section. Pressman notes that: “President Sally Kornbluth is reinvigorating the school’s support of the local innovation ecosystem, unveiling new online classes dedicated to AI — with free entry-level classes for anyone — and encouraging more entrepreneurship on campus.” 

Boston Globe reporter Robert Weisman spotlights how MIT is “working to drive artificial intelligence forward in sectors where the region is strongest, from biotechnology and robotics to defense and clean energy. It’s also trying to broaden entrepreneurship through a ‘dorm-to-startup’ push, creating a pipeline of support services — from hack-a-thons to venture funding — to help students to start companies between classes.” 

Writing for The Daily Caller, Jesse Hamel Executive MBA ’25 - a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, an AC-130 gunship combat aviator, a former Air Force Special Operations Command drone squadron commander and founder of VICTUS Technologies - makes the case for the Department of War sponsoring graduate-level education and fellowships at MIT. “The talent base and the operational seriousness of MIT made VICTUS possible,” Hamel writes. “My time on [the MIT] campus from 2023 through 2025 reinforced that view. As a veteran, I encountered respect for my service alongside some of the most demanding technical and academic standards I have ever faced.” 

Prof. Asu Ozdaglar, head of EECS and deputy dean of academics for the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, speaks with Kai Ryssdal of Marketplace about how MIT is preparing its students for the era of AI by teaching foundational skills that will enable them to find jobs in a variety of different sectors. The new Artificial Intelligence + Decision Making major (AI+D) teaches students about the “foundations of how to use this intelligence for enhancing human experience, human work, human education, all of those domains, so that no matter how the technology changes, these students can adapt their skills to the new set of tools and developments.”

President Sally Kornbluth joins Sloan Senior Lecturer Brian Halligan MBA ’05 on his podcast “Long Strange Trip: CEO to CEO” to chat leadership strategies, AI and education, and MIT's approach to preparing students for life after college. “People talk to me, alums talk to me about how MIT changed their lives. It's not because of some particular class or some particular skill they acquired. It’s the whole environment,” Kornbluth notes. She adds that when it comes to educating students, at MIT "we want them to have the kind of knowledge base and ability to navigate the world that will enable them to do anything they want to do.”

Prof. Julien de Wit speaks with Dan Rea from WBZ’s Nightside News about his team’s work developing new ways to address threats posted by small asteroids to our critical space infrastructure. “We are developing the technology here at MIT to find [asteroids] and then track them and understand if we should be caring about them,” de Wit explains. 

Prof. Julien de Wit, Research Scientist Artem Burdanov and Research Scientist Saverio Cambioni join Edgar Herwick III of GBH’s Curiosity Desk to discuss their work with planetary defense and their method for detecting and tracking smaller asteroids that could impact Earth’s critical space infrastructure. “We are swimming in an era that is data rich, and so what we do in our group and at MIT is mine that data to reveal the universe like never before,” says de Wit. “Revealing new populations of asteroids, new populations of planets, and making sense of our universe like we have never done.”

Prof. Justin Reich speaks with New York Times reporter Matthew Haag about the integration of educational technology tools, including AI, in schools. “Historically, when we try to guess the best ways of using new technologies, we’re often wrong,” explains Reich. “There are lots of people who are out there who will say, ‘This is what we need to do, this is best practice,’ and they’re making stuff up.”

MIT has been ranked the number two university in the nation in U.S. News & World Report’s 2025-26 rankings, reports Haley Chamberlain for Quartz. “MIT emphasizes practical problem solving rather than traditional lecture-heavy education,” adds Chamberlain. “Students regularly participate in research labs and entrepreneurial programs. The campus culture encourages experimentation across disciplines.” 

Using new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers from MIT determined that asteroid 2024 YR4 will not collide with the moon, reports Hannah Devlin for The Guardian. “[Asteroid] 2024 YR4 is exceedingly faint right now, reflecting about as much light as an almond at the distance of the moon,” explain Prof. Julien de Wit and Andy Rivkin PhD '91, who co-led the observations. “Webb is the only observatory that could hope to make these measurements, as it is the only one with the required sensitivity and stability combined with precise moving-target tracking needed to follow and study objects like this.”

MIT has launched a new effort aimed at helping high schoolers across the U.S. tackle calculus, reports Juliet Schulman-Hall for MassLive. The new program, called the MIT4America Calculus Project, pairs trained MIT undergraduates and alumni with school districts across the U.S. to tutor high school students from Montana to Texas in calculus. The program “was created last year with an in-person summer calculus camp,” Schulman-Hall notes. “Since then, it has grown to include 14 school districts.”