College-bound Bay Area high school students say AI is useful, and a source of anxiety

Logan Fanene uses ChatGPT to fix his car, but homework is a different story. The Bay Area high school senior tries to avoid using artificial intelligence to help with school work, he says.
His bigger concern — AI technology could undercut his ability to get a job.  

“I’m not so worried as a student, I’m more worried about my career,” Fanene, 17, said Thursday at a California State University fair for prospective students in downtown Oakland. Fanene hopes to study architecture at California Polytechnic State University next year, but he has concerns about how AI is affecting that field.  

Recent, alarming AI developments have spurred lawmakers and experts into further debate about putting controls on the burgeoning industry. But for high schoolers looking to the future — applying to college and a job — the questions around this technology are more personal: What will this mean for me?
That AI trepidation loomed over the college fair at the Oakland Marriott last Thursday. Student attendees told EdSource they worried about how the technology would impact their education and future career options. Some shared broader fears about whether companies are developing the technology too rapidly. 

A few students acknowledge an unsettling dilemma as AI technology improves and proliferates — using AI for schoolwork may cheat them out of learning, but not using AI altogether could mean getting left behind. 

“Some people our age kinda rely on it, which I think is very unhealthy,” said Gage Peterson, a high school junior from Alameda. 

“I feel like everyone knows it’s a serious thing in general, that it could be a problem later in life, but they still use it,” Ollie Carling, a junior from Alameda, said at the fair.

Ginger Reyes, CSU’s director of admissions and outreach, told EdSource the university system doesn’t know exactly what jobs will exist by the time today’s high school seniors graduate from college. But she said that CSU is trying to prepare students for a future workforce reshaped by AI. 

A 2025 survey of California adults found that about 31% of respondents believe that using generative AI tools in K-12 education does more harm than good, while 35% think the technology comes with a mix of benefits and drawbacks in education. 

Attitudes about AI and education are rapidly changing, said Gillian Hayes, a professor of informatics at UC Irvine who has studied parents’ and students’ perceptions of AI.

“One week they’re super hopeful, and then a week later they’re super fearful, and they’re back to hopeful again at another time,” Hayes said of parents she has surveyed. “The world is sort of chaotic and confusing right now.”

‘Skip out on the learning’

Nas Antonio, a student at De Anza College in Cupertino, strongly objects to using AI to replace the work of artists, which he fears will happen more as the technology improves. Still, he sees the value in using some AI tools that don’t generate answers for students. 

Antonio visited the college fair last week to learn more about the two universities he hopes to transfer to next year: San Francisco State University and San José State University. He said he’s seen his classmates use AI to do assignments and “skip out on the learning.” 

While its exact impacts are unclear, there is evidence that AI can be harmful to students’ learning. Several studies have shown that AI use is correlated with lower high-stakes exam scores.

For students, there’s often a mix of anxiety and a begrudging need to use AI, said Stephen Aguilar, an associate education professor who helps lead USC’s Center for Generative A.I. and Society. Aguilar conducted a survey of 1,000 college students and found that nearly all used generative AI tools. A majority of respondents, 54%, worried that they could become too reliant on the technology. 

“Students who are using AI for executive help, they want to offload their thinking. Those students don’t do well,” Aguilar said. 

Don’t want to cheat, or be left behind

In surveying teens, Hayes, the UC Irvine professor, found that adolescents think critically about how they use AI, and they’re confronting conflicting feelings. They don’t want to cheat, but they also don’t want to be left behind. 

“Teenagers are really figuring out who they are, they’re developing their value systems, they tend to actually be pretty ethical and pretty moral creatures,” she said.

Some California universities have taken steps to infuse AI into courses and campus life. Both USC and Cal State have signed contracts with OpenAI to provide students access to a version of ChatGPT. 

Hayes advocated for nuanced regulations around the use of AI in schools and universities, rather than completely banning the technology, as Los Angeles Unified School District recently announced. Those policies tend to have the greatest negative impact on the most vulnerable students, Hayes said. 

At the college fair in Oakland, high school senior Kaleah Luby said that she tries to avoid using AI, especially when she’s learning new things, because she doesn’t believe it will help her in the long run. 

Luby’s friend, Angelica Truong, who plans to study public health, said, “It’s a useful tool, but I don’t think it should be used as a replacement for complex stuff.” 

This story was originally published by EdSource.