The Future of Higher Education: How AI Can Deepen Learning In College Coursework and Studying
- Gustavo Yamasaki
- Mar 17
- 9 min read
Updated: Mar 21
College students often face the daunting task of reading, organizing, and creating vast amounts of course materials across various subjects every semester. The amount of time students spend on tedious or needlessly administrative work required to engage with their course materials and prepare for assessments can contribute to burnout and negatively affect their learning. Juggling multiple resources such as textbooks, articles, lecture slides, syllabi, notes, and study guides can hinder overall comprehension, potentially jeopardizing students' readiness for the professional world after graduation.
To better understand and address these challenges, Adobe Acrobat surveyed 1,000 college students in the U.S. to uncover common study struggles that many face. To further see how higher education is adopting generative AI, we also analyzed student handbooks and guidelines to see how colleges and universities across the U.S. are integrating AI policies to guide faculty and students toward safe and responsible use for their coursework and academic learning.
Key Findings
61 percent of college students surveyed reported heavy reading to be a top factor in academic burnout. The average full-time college student surveyed spends 28 hours a month reading and comprehending course materials to complete assignments.
Nine in ten college students surveyed are using generative AI for their classwork, with over half (54 percent) using it at least once a week, according to our survey.
80 percent of students reported being worried that the generative AI tools they use for their courses provide inaccurate or misleading information.
77 percent of college students surveyed say that colleges should be offering artificial intelligence skills classes to better prepare them for careers.
79 percent of four-year universities whose policies we analyzed allow the use of AI for study preparation (i.e. notecard creation, study guide outlines).
The rise of generative AI in the college classroom
College students are increasingly using generative AI tools to improve their learning and understand the significance of acquiring AI skills for their future careers. With nearly four in five respondents expressing interest in AI courses to prepare for the future workforce, our findings explore just how impactful generative AI is becoming to college students.
Being able to chat with multiple documents and course materials all at once helps students find key themes and takeaways in one place. Tools that let students use a chatbot to understand and ask questions about course materials can be especially helpful for students with their studying. In our study, we actually found that one in three students surveyed say they currently use AI to help summarize dense digital documents. Using the chat with pdf function within Adobe Acrobat’s AI Assistant is particularly simple to use as it may help students understand their reading and prepare their study material within the course PDFs themselves.
According to our findings, these are the top types of AI tools that students rely on most to assist with their studies:
Writing tools (55 percent)
Chatbots (45 percent)
Research tools (40 percent)
Reading and document summary tools (33 percent)
According to our findings, college students who have never used AI are 25 percent more likely to worry about AI inaccuracies compared to those who use AI weekly. While AI can help streamline how students learn and comprehend course materials, it is often referred to as unreliable as it can sometimes provide misleading information, especially when sources provided by some tools are primarily pulled from the internet without reliable verification of accuracy. With this, 78 percent of the students we surveyed agree that citing reliable sources in academic work is still very essential. Acrobat AI Assistant's custom attribution engine is found to be particularly helpful here, as it generates linked citations for material pulled directly from the users’ documents so students can be directed to the source to easily verify the response they receive or learn more.
Combating academic burnout with Generative AI
Students invest considerable time reading course materials, studying, and preparing for exams, often being asked to consume thousands of pages of readings, lecture slides, notes, and other materials for a single course. However, many students may face challenges with reading comprehension, balancing school with work, extracurriculars, and other demands that make it challenging to get the most out of their learning experience.
According to our survey, students who use AI weekly are 17 percent less likely to experience anxiety and stress due to academic performance than those who do not use AI. Leveraging generative AI tools may help students spend less time stressing and more time learning and comprehending their course material. Using Acrobat AI Assistant, students can ask questions about their course material while actively reading, create aids to guide them through efficient studying, and more to help them get the most out of their learning, even when having many competing demands.
Preparing for exams
Full-time students often dedicate significant time to creating their own materials to summarize, synthesize, and memorize materials for their courses. Our study found that students spend an average of 24 hours a month crafting new study materials to prepare for their exams, and over half of respondents say they only begin to study less than four days before an exam or final. By optimizing the creation of study aids themselves, students can allocate more of their time to deepen their understanding of the material and study for their courses more efficiently.
Students often do not have time to use study resources such as faculty office hours, academic resource centers, or organizing study groups. Alternatively, many students may be hesitant to ask for help or may feel intimidated or embarassed asking questions and seeking personal support. In such cases, students may find generative AI can be helpful in summarizing, reviewing, practicing questions, and checking their understanding of academic course material.
Use of study materials
Regarding actual study preferences, creating individual study guides is the top choice for over half (51 percent) of students surveyed. Meanwhile, our study found that 43 percent of students rely on flashcards or question/answer formats of review documents to help them practice recalling key terms and concepts. We also discovered in our study that seniors invest 25 percent more time creating study materials than first-year students, demonstrating that the value of this type of material is realized and taken advantage of as students progress into more difficult coursework in their degree.
Using tools like Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant, students can create study guides and review materials that may help them navigate studying in these new education environments as early as their first semester of Freshman year. Learning these strategies early in their academic journey can set them up for success by increasing their academic performance, confidence, and belief that they can successfully navigate the demands of college to graduate and pursue their chosen careers.
Can AI improve reading comprehension for students?
According to the National Center for Academic Statistics (NCES), 54 percent of U.S. adults ages 16 to 74 years old (130 million people) lack proficiency in literacy, reading below a sixth-grade level. Reading is foundational to acquiring knowledge and sharing ideas, but most children and adults worldwide do not read optimally.
With these facts in mind, it is perhaps unsurprising that most college students we surveyed reported they struggle to understand complex course materials.
In this study, we also discovered that college students typically spend about 28 hours each month reading and understanding course materials, and many struggle throughout. 84 percent of respondents report frequently encountering reading challenges, with dense or lengthy texts being the most common problem affecting 55 percent of them.
With academic demands and limited time, students are often seeking effective strategies to navigate these obstacles and optimize their studying. To help overcome these challenges, we found that over half of students surveyed utilize AI support on a weekly basis, finding it beneficial for breaking down complex content. AI tools, such as Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant, have emerged as new resources for helping students navigate lengthy texts, comprehend difficult vocabulary, and improve overall understanding.
Insights from U.S. college AI policies for students
To supplement the insights from the surveyed college students, Adobe Acrobat also conducted a landscape review to shed light on how colleges across the U.S. support faculty and students in their attempts to amplify teaching and learning with the assistance of safe and responsible generative AI tools.
In our comprehensive analysis of AI policies at 50 educational institutions across the U.S., we examined a diverse mix of four-year public, private universities, and two-year community colleges. Our goal was to understand the generative AI activities these schools allow, as well as the categories of consequences students might face if they deviate from the established guidelines.
The consequence score is as follows:
Academic penalties or disciplinary actions
Consequences relating to course failure
Consequences leading to expulsion or dismissal
We uncovered that half of the community colleges studied consider course failure a potential consequence of improper AI use (score two). Notably, a quarter of these institutions are prepared to consider expulsion (score three). For four-year universities analyzed, the repercussions can be grave with 86 percent cautioning students about expulsion (score three) for breaching AI policies, while 7 percent focus on course failure without expulsion risk (score two).
All the community colleges we studied have opened their doors to AI for research purposes. Yet, only 50 percent of these two-year schools have given the green light for AI to be used for citation support. In contrast, 86 percent of four-year universities analyzed support AI for research while 64 percent allow for citation support, emphasizing technology integration into students' academic pursuits.
When it comes to study planning, 79 percent of the four-year institutions we explored have approved the use of AI. Similarly, every community college we studied acknowledged the significance of AI in study planning. This alignment demonstrates a shared vision across the educational spectrum.
Our analysis of college AI policies across the U.S. reveals a clear trend: Institutions are actively setting guidelines for AI use and recognize this new technology's growing role in education. Colleges that fail to establish clear AI policies risk falling behind as student adoption of AI tools continues.
While Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant offers many college-approved features, it's always best to reference your individual college's AI policies before utilizing any generative AI tools for your studies. College students can leverage the AI Assistant to supercharge their studying by aiding their understanding of key themes and takeaways from their course materials, creating study guides, and generating trusted citations. You can confidently use this tool, knowing that the features within Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant undergo a rigorous review through Adobe's responsible AI Ethics governance process, ensuring they align with our principles of accountability, responsibility, and transparency.
Study smarter with Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant
If you’re looking for ways to incorporate AI tools into helping in your courses, Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant can help streamline your study process, boost productivity, and help you succeed academically.Here are a few example prompts you can use in AI Assistant to help your academic studies:
Create a study guide: "Summarize these chapters into a succinct study guide."
Summarize lecture notes: "Give me the top 5 takeaways from last week's lecture."
Comprehend concepts: "Explain [concept] in more simple terms."
Identify differences between complex concepts: "What is the difference between [concept 1] and [concept 2]?"
Create practice tests: "Provide 10 sample test questions my professor could ask me."
Create a study plan: "Create a list of concepts from this semester for me to study."
The importance of accessible document tools for college students
Interestingly, nearly nine in ten respondents (86 percent) say they obtain course materials as PDF documents, showing how there's been a digital shift in academia and the increased need for accessible digital tools. Adobe Acrobat’s accessibility features may help enhance college students with reading challenges by offering improved navigation tools and customizable settings for individuals with varying needs. Features like enhanced screen reader capabilities and cloud-based auto-tagging may benefit college students with disabilities, learning differences, or other diverse needs to navigate their digital course materials more efficiently, ultimately enhancing their overall academic performance and experience. By offering an accessible and streamlined experience, Adobe Acrobat can help college students access, view, and interact with PDF course materials needed for their studies.
Some college students may benefit more from reading digital documents on handheld devices, like using Liquid Mode in Acrobat Mobile. Like reader modes on websites, Liquid Mode reformats PDFs to make them more readable on smaller screens. It will also generate an outline with collapsible and expandable sections that may help college students better navigate their course material to study more effectively.
Methodology
We surveyed 1,110 U.S. college students to explore their study habits and how they incorporate AI into their studies. Survey respondents were broken down as follows:- School Year: Freshmen (13 percent), Sophomores (19 percent) , Juniors (22 percent) , Seniors (30 percent) , and nontraditional students (16 percent )
-Major: Business (18 percent), Computers/Math (14 percent), Engineering/Technology (14 percent), Social sciences (14 percent), Health sciences (12 percent), Arts/Humanities (11 percent), Natural sciences (8 percent), and other (9 percent).
This sample size provides a 95 percent confidence level with a low margin of error at 3 percent. Survey data have certain limitations related to self-reporting. This data is based on self-reported answers, meaning respondents may have had biases or discrepancies between their own reported ability and their actual abilities.
To explore university policies and consequences, we began by selecting a sample of 50 schools based on a representative logic of universities in the U.S.: 60 percent public four-year colleges, 23 percent private four-year colleges, and 17 percent two-year colleges. We then performed a text analysis on their publicly available AI policies to determine this ranking.