RAND: More Students Are Using AI for Homework—and More Fear It Hurts Critical Thinking

A fresh RAND report offers one of the clearest snapshots yet of how students themselves are experiencing AI in education: usage is rising quickly, but so is unease. Based on a December 2025 survey of 1,214 U.S. youth ages 12 to 29, RAND found that the share of students using AI for homework climbed from 48% in May 2025 to 62% by December. Middle and high school students drove much of that increase.

Just as notable, 67% of students agreed with the statement that the more students use AI for schoolwork, the more it will harm their critical thinking skills. That figure rose by more than 10 percentage points in ten months. In other words, students are not simply embracing AI uncritically; many are actively worried about overreliance, confusion over rules, and the possibility that convenient help becomes cognitive offloading.

RAND’s findings are especially useful for school leaders because they move beyond abstract debate. Students reported uncertainty about whether AI use counts as cheating, whether teachers are monitoring for it, and whether acceptable use depends on the specific teacher. Older students were more likely to say rules varied by classroom and to worry about being accused of cheating.

The report does not call for simplistic prohibition. Instead, it recommends direct conversations with students, clearer schoolwide guidance, and more explicit distinctions between productive AI use and unproductive dependence. RAND uses a helpful contrast: cognitive augmentation versus cognitive offloading. The first describes AI supporting deeper work; the second describes AI doing the mental work for the learner. That distinction could become a practical lens for districts revising policy.

For educators, the report is a reminder that AI policy should not be built only around detection or discipline. Students need examples, norms, and assignments that show when AI can support learning and when it starts to replace it.

As adoption accelerates, that may be the real challenge for schools in 2026: not deciding whether AI is present, but deciding what kind of thinking they still expect students to do themselves.

Sources:

• RAND, "More Students Use AI for Homework, and More Believe It Harms Critical Thinking": https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4742-1.html
• RAND American Youth Panel overview: https://www.rand.org/education-and-labor/projects/american-youth-panel.html