On Dec. 12, just as students were finishing finals and preparing to go home for winter break, Drexel University announced by email that it had “signed an enterprise license with OpenAI to provide secure access to ChatGPT Edu for all members of the Drexel community.” This means, in simple terms, that Drexel purchased a ChatGPT membership for every student, whether they want it or not, set to be implemented sometime in January.
This should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the university’s activities regarding AI. Before this, there was the announcement of the new Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning major in the College of Computing & Informatics. About a year ago, the University of Pennsylvania announced its new undergraduate degree in Artificial Intelligence, and a few months later, the Wharton School of Business announced that it would be signing an enterprise license with OpenAI. This raises questions about how innovative Drexel can claim to be.
The question likely nagging every student who read the email: how much is Drexel paying for this? There is no clear answer. Co-chair of the standing committee on AI, Vice Provost Steven Weber, declined to provide The Triangle with any figures, instead assuring that “the university negotiated a fair and competitive contract with OpenAI,” which leaves concerns about Drexel’s known budget constraints unattended.
The California State University system is paying OpenAI approximately $16.9 million for access to ChatGPT Edu for its 460,000 students. However, Bloomberg reports that universities typically pay OpenAI around $2.50 per student per month for an enterprise (bulk) license. Compared with Microsoft, which reportedly charges $30 per student per month for educational users of Copilot, ChatGPT Edu is the more cost-effective option.
When asked about the possibility of this encouraging cheating among students, Vice Provost Weber clarified that “there is no conflict between the agreement with OpenAI and our existing policies.”
“[S]tudents must ensure their usage of AI in each class accords with instructor guidance. The use of AI tools in coursework should be restricted to contexts sanctioned by the instructors,” indicating that the committee believes the increased access will not cause students to utilize AI irresponsibly.
This adoption is not just for students: “The university encourages each instructor, each academic program, and each academic unit to consider if and/or how AI can and/or should be integrated into their research and teaching activities.”
Many professors vehemently rebuke AI and teach courses that have been disrupted by its invention; convincing them to integrate ChatGPT into their curriculum may be a tough ask.
Addressing potential privacy concerns, Vice Provost Weber pointed to an upside of signing a formal enterprise licensing agreement with OpenAI.
“[T]his enterprise license agreement means all prompts entered through Drexel’s OpenAI portal by faculty, staff, and students [are] retained by Drexel and not shared with OpenAI,” he said. When students and faculty use generative AI today, their data is harvested to train new models, but under this agreement, that data will be kept private.
It is understandable for the University to seek to acquire the latest technologies for students, and AI is here to stay, but the question boils down to whether or not this will negatively impact students by encouraging them to overuse AI. The answer remains to be seen.