House Ed Committee Investigates How AI Affects College Admissions

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The House Education and the Workforce Committee is sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office in order to assess how AI is affecting college admissions. 

“As artificial intelligence tools continue to improve, some institutions of higher education have begun to use these tools in their admissions and institutional scholarship selection processes,” the letter, obtained by the Daily Signal, says. “To assess this use, the Committee on Education and Workforce seeks information from the U.S. Government Accountability Office.”

The committee noted that some applicants, students, and parents are worried about the use of AI in admissions. They want to know if applications are considered fairly when AI tools are used. 

Some colleges use chatbots to provide information to prospective students and to review application materials. Research also shows that applicants are increasingly relying on AI to draft essays and other application materials.

“While some schools have made public statements emphasizing that their use of AI only supplements human review of applications and that AI does not make admissions decisions,” the letter says, “other reports suggest that some schools use, or are considering using, AI tools to make final admissions decisions.”

The Education Committee requested the federal watchdog agency’s help in answering the following questions:

1. “How do colleges use AI in their admissions and institutional scholarship selection processes, and how widespread are these uses?”

2. “How do colleges monitor AI use in the admissions and institutional scholarship selection processes to ensure AI outputs are accurate and treat applicants impartially?”

3. “How do selected colleges identify and address applicants’ potential use of AI in admissions and institutional scholarship application processes, and how effective have they found these efforts to be?”

The committee also sent a separate letter to the GAO asking for additional information on how students who change schools can transfer their credits. 

A third letter asks GAO for “information about the landscape of faculty tenure across higher education.”