When was the last time you felt genuinely excited to dive deep into a topic just because it fascinated you? When did you last spend hours exploring an idea not because it was assigned, but because you couldn’t stop thinking about it? 

If you’re struggling to remember, you’re not alone. 

As a third-year student at the University of Minnesota, I’ve watched something troubling unfold in classrooms across campus: We’re losing our love of learning. 

Artificial intelligence is accelerating this decline in ways that should alarm every student, professor and administrator. 

The statistics paint a stark picture. A recent survey found 92% of students use AI in some form, up from just 66% in 2024. Another study found more than 89% of students admitted to using ChatGPT for help with homework. 

We’ve embraced these tools with unprecedented speed, but the cost is becoming clear. 

A study published in January found a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool use and participants’ critical thinking abilities. The researchers also discovered that younger participants showed higher AI dependence and lower critical thinking skills than older participants. 

The culprit? Cognitive offloading, essentially outsourcing our thinking to machines. 

But statistics only tell part of the story. What I witness in daily campus life is far more concerning than any research paper can capture. I watch classmates approach every assignment with the same question: How can I get this done fastest? 

They don’t ask “What can I learn from this?” or “How does this connect to bigger ideas?” The focus has shifted from understanding to completion, from curiosity to efficiency. 

During study groups, I’ve seen the change happen in real time. When someone poses a challenging question, instead of sparking the animated discussions we used to have, there’s now an immediate reach for phones. 

“Let me ask ChatGPT,” has become our default response to intellectual challenge. 

Most telling is the language students use. I regularly hear peers say things like “Why do I need to learn this when AI can do it for me?” or “I don’t need to understand the process if the AI gets the right answer.” 

We’ve started viewing education as an obstacle to overcome rather than knowledge to acquire. This represents something far deeper than academic shortcuts. We’re witnessing the systematic erosion of intellectual curiosity itself. 

The joy of discovery, the satisfaction of wrestling with complex ideas, the thrill of connecting seemingly unrelated concepts, these fundamental pleasures of learning are disappearing. Students arrive at college with natural curiosity, but we’re inadvertently training them out of it. 

When every question has an instant AI-generated answer, when every difficult concept can be explained by a chatbot, when every essay can be drafted by an algorithm, where’s the incentive to think deeply? 

The irony is devastating. We’re at one of the world’s premier research universities, surrounded by brilliant minds and cutting-edge ideas, yet many students choose to engage with none of it. They sleepwalk through their education, accumulating credits while avoiding the transformative intellectual growth that makes college worthwhile. 

This isn’t just about missing out on academic fulfillment. The economic implications are serious, too. 

PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, estimates up to 30% of jobs could be automatable by the mid-2030s. The same study found 37% of workers worldwide already fear AI will replace their jobs. But here’s the crucial point: The jobs being created require exactly what we’re failing to develop. 

Research by McKinsey Global Institute shows that AI is generating new opportunities that demand critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving. The future workforce needs humans who can oversee AI systems, evaluate their outputs and make complex decisions requiring nuanced judgment. Students who never learned to think independently will be ill-equipped for these roles. 

We don’t have to accept this trajectory. 

The University established an AI task force to advise on its development and use of AI tools. This is our moment to advocate for approaches that preserve intellectual development rather than undermine it. 

We need assessment methods that can’t be completed by AI. We need assignments that require students to show their work and provide explanations for revisions. We need real-time problem-solving exercises where students defend their reasoning in person. 

Most importantly, we need to remember why we came to college in the first place. 

Learning isn’t about accumulating facts or completing assignments. It’s about developing the capacity to think, question and discover. It’s about becoming the kind of person who can navigate complexities, solve novel problems and contribute meaningfully to the world. 

That capacity is slipping away, one AI-generated response at a time. 

We can still choose differently, but only if we act now. 

Our intellectual future depends on it.

John Cracraft is a third-year student studying finance at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management. In his free time, he enjoys writing on current issues, backpacking and golfing.