84% of high schoolers now use AI for schoolwork, exposing a motivation crisis

The share of high school students using artificial intelligence for academic tasks rose from 79% to 84% between January and May 2025, according to data released by the College Board last fall.

This surge has intensified a debate among educators about the fundamental purpose of schoolwork. Many teachers argue that AI did not create a lack of student motivation but instead exposed a long-standing failure in the education system to make learning relevant and challenging. The technology now allows students to complete assignments with minimal effort, removing the friction that previously forced them to engage with the material.

Chris Hulleman, a researcher at the University of Virginia who has studied student motivation for more than two decades, notes that the social contract between students and schools has shifted. He observes that students are increasingly questioning the value of boring or seemingly pointless tasks. If the work does not feel meaningful, Hulleman says, students are likely to use the free tools available to them rather than put in the effort themselves.

Alex Campbell, a sociology teacher at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee, illustrates an alternative approach. He assigned his students to solve the unsolved Redhead Murders, a series of cold cases that had stumped law enforcement for over 30 years. The students interviewed family members, consulted an FBI profiler, and identified new victims. Their work eventually became the basis for a podcast and an Amazon Prime TV series that reached the top three in rankings in July.

Campbell explains that the project succeeded because it was difficult but manageable. He tells his students upfront that the work will be hard, which increases their investment in the outcome. He argues that meaningful experiences in life are almost always hard, and schools must offer similar challenging opportunities that cannot be replicated through passive media consumption.

Dylan Kane, a math teacher in Colorado, uses the metaphor of indoor plumbing to describe the impact of AI. While plumbing freed people from hauling water, it also removed the daily physical activity that kept them healthy. Kane suggests that AI is automating cognitive effort at a scale that may reverse the Flynn effect, the historical rise in IQ scores attributed to a more demanding intellectual environment. He believes schools should focus on creating cognitive exercise that is hard but within reach.

Rebecca Winthrop, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, points to a 2024 Gallup survey showing that fewer than half of middle and high school students said their coursework challenges them. Only 17% strongly agreed that they had learned something interesting at school in the previous seven days. Winthrop argues that AI has layered itself over a transactional educational process where students often view school as a place to earn grades rather than to learn skills.

Eric Anderman, an educational psychologist at Ohio State University, notes that student behavior often depends on the message sent by teachers. When educators emphasize grades and tests, cheating and disengagement tend to rise. When the focus shifts to mastery and learning, those rates drop. He reminds teachers that letter grades are artificial constructs and that the system needs to better align with genuine intellectual growth.