Cal State's $17 Million ChatGPT Deal Faces Renewal Questions Amid Faculty and Student Backlash
California State University's contract with OpenAI expires this July. The $17 million deal, signed in January 2025, gave all 22 campuses unlimited access to ChatGPT Edu. The university system has not announced whether it will renew.
The rollout caught faculty and students off guard. No formal announcement preceded the deal. Students learned about it through a systemwide press release in February. Faculty were left to develop their own classroom policies without clear guidance.
A Cal State survey of over 94,000 students and employees found 52% of faculty reported AI for Education had a negative effect on their teaching. Sixty-seven percent of students said their professors don't teach them how to use AI effectively.
Only 0.7% of students and 16% of faculty completed voluntary training on the AI Commons website, a resource the university offered to help with implementation.
The Implementation Problem
Faculty adopted conflicting approaches. Some banned AI from their classes entirely and switched to in-person exams using blue books and scantrons. Others made ChatGPT Edu part of their curriculum. Students navigated these contradictions without clear rules.
At Cal State Bakersfield, the dean of students for academic integrity reported a steady increase in students reported for improper AI use. At the same time, some professors required students to use AI-powered tools like Google NotebookLM for assignments.
Yagmur Wernimont, a sophomore at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, watched a classmate receive a 100% on an assignment using ChatGPT while she did not use the tool. Her professor had verbally told the class not to use AI but did not include the rule in the syllabus or specify consequences.
Ryan Jenkins, chair of the AI Task Force for Cal Poly San Luis Obispo's faculty union chapter, said the university may not have realized how much work the initiative would require. "It's a significant revision to the old way of doing things," he said.
Students Want a Seat at the Table
Katie Karroum, vice president of systemwide affairs for the Cal State Student Association, was shocked to learn about the ChatGPT Edu deal through a press release. The student organization represents over 470,000 students across the state but was not consulted before the contract was signed.
At a Cal State Student Association meeting in October, student representatives from each campus reported a lack of consistent policies for students accused of using AI to cheat. They also expressed concerns about data collection from the chatbot.
Karroum published an open letter documenting student complaints about the absence of a consistent AI policy across classes. She said students feel treated as "test rats" because there is no policy and no guidance.
Cal State chose OpenAI as the least-costly option, according to Leslie Kennedy, assistant vice chancellor of academic technology services. The contract aimed to provide free access to all students across all campuses, replacing situations where individual students and campuses paid for upgraded ChatGPT accounts on their own.
Faculty Develop Their Own Policies
Some faculty have created detailed syllabus statements outlining when, why, and how students should use AI. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo maintains a repository of more than 200 AI syllabus policies from faculty across the system.
At Cal State Fullerton, Shelli Wynants helps faculty decide how to use AI in their classrooms. She teaches students to critically review AI output and remain "the thinker and the decision maker" in their work. She refers to AI as an "assistant" or "teammate," never a replacement for human judgment.
Jenkins teaches philosophy and uses in-class exams to prevent AI use during tests. He tells students to treat AI like any other source when using its outputs for assignments, but he does not have an AI statement in his syllabus because his department has not provided one.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo does not require faculty to use a specific AI statement. The university links to the AI Commons and an AI statement builder from Pepperdine University but does not mandate their use.
Policy Gaps Create Real Problems
Staff at university tutoring centers report students being penalized by professors for using the very AI tools the university system wants them to learn. According to the Cal State survey, 78% of students, faculty, and staff said ethical AI use is a major concern.
Seher Vora, coordinator for San Jose State University's writing center, created an AI Writer Toolbox after tutors reported students being blamed for cheating while using university-approved tools. The toolbox helps students use AI responsibly, including how to properly disclose AI use and avoid using the chatbot to generate work that should be their own.
The writing center advises students to check with their professors if they are unsure what AI uses are acceptable. Vora said staying informed is critical. "It's changing every day," she said.
What Comes Next
Some faculty at San Francisco State University have begun a petition calling on Cal State Chancellor Mildred Garcia to end the partnership with OpenAI.
Assemblymember Mike Fong introduced Assembly Bill 2392 in February, which would require Cal State and California Community Colleges to provide training on any AI product deployed on campuses. The bill would also request that University of California schools do the same.
The Cal State Chancellor's office said 64% of students, faculty, and staff reported AI had a positive effect on their learning experience, and 63% said they had seen more opportunities to learn about AI on their campuses.
Ed Clark, Cal State's chief information officer, told legislators in August that the university system understands the criticisms and concerns are valid. "The best way to deal with those concerns is to have our universities participate in helping to shape the future of these technologies," he said.
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