The ChatGPT logo. Source: The Chosun Daily.
With the recent uncovering of massive cheating scandals at each of South Korea’s top universities, the realities of the AI boom become clearer for educators and students in higher education. Despite AI’s easy public accessibility in recent years, the nation’s upper tiers of academia have been slow to lay out plans for dealing with this new reality. In a country that places the utmost importance on exams and educational achievement, students are highly motivated to find ways to get ahead of their peers, and AI and other technological tools offer them new strategies to do so. The cheating scandals are not just proof of the immense pressures placed on students, but they also raise questions surrounding the value of education and whether the ultimate goal is solely to pass exams, no matter the cost. As a result, academic leaders face the dilemma of how to adapt to a world where AI use is not only available but also often encouraged in the classroom. To get at even deeper issues, how can educators ensure students are properly equipped for a life beyond university if exams are approached as something simply meant to be passed rather than proof of expertise in a subject? As higher education contends with the embrace of AI across many sectors, students and educators alike are being forced to question their roles within academia under the influence of artificial intelligence.
Korea’s Recent Cheating Scandals
In early November 2025, news broke about a massive midterm exam cheating scandal at Yonsei University, one of the three top-ranked universities in Korea. The professor of an online course of over 600 students (ironically entitled “Natural Language Processing and ChatGPT”) revealed that a number of students had come forward about cheating on the online exam and would receive scores of zero as a result. In a classroom app poll, nearly 200 students admitted to cheating, making the true number of students who found ways (including using AI tools) around the online assessment’s self-recording guidelines impossible to determine.
In the days following this news, similar reports of cheating on exams at Seoul National University (SNU) and Korea University came to light. At SNU, students of a statistics course were required to generate code on a midterm, and some were found to have used AI tools to do so even though the professor had banned the use of such aids on the exam. In the case of Korea University, students of another large online lecture used chatrooms to share exam questions and answers during the midterm’s online test period. The university decided to invalidate the entire midterm exam out of concern for such widespread cheating. Despite university officials’ pledge to implement preventative measures for future exams, another mass cheating event on November 20 took place, this time on an in-person assessment. Though the exam was held in class, it was still online, and several students found a loophole in the test software that allowed them to retake the exam and check their answers, with a few using AI tools on their multiple attempts. The university launched an investigation, and the faculty involved issued an apology for not properly anticipating problems with the midterm, but has not decided on what disciplinary measures it will take at the time of writing.
The entrance of Korea University in summer 2025. Source: The New York Times.
Challenges in Addressing Cheating
As the number of cheating scandals at elite universities has increased, university officials and instructors are scrambling to address them, along with handling the inescapable use of AI in the classroom and on exams. In response to its own cheating incident, Yonsei University plans to hold a public hearing on AI at its Institute for AI and Social Innovation. Topics of discussion will include the recent shift from in-person to online exam formats and possible changes to teaching and test-taking methods to tackle the widespread adoption of AI among instructors and students alike. For its part, Seoul National University held a workshop for students on November 21 entitled “Is it Okay to Use ChatGPT for Homework?” to acknowledge the problem. These reactionary measures come with the expectation that further conversations about both cheating and AI use will enable students to better navigate college life with the suite of technology now at their disposal.
Despite these attempts to address the issue, comprehensive university guidelines on AI use in the classroom have been somewhat elusive, to the frustration of students and staff. Vague AI ethics guidelines published by Korea’s education ministry in 2022 did not offer much in the way of classroom usage, focusing instead on privacy concerns. In a 2023 survey of 131 universities, only 30 of them were found to have generative AI guidelines in place. As a result, professors have largely been left to their own devices in determining how to handle AI use in the classroom. Without clear rules or set parameters from instructors or administrators, students can also feel unsure about the extent of AI use allowed on assignments. Other students may see the lack of restrictions as an opportunity to test the limits of academic integrity without university-mandated disciplinary consequences. A lack of enforced penalties for academic dishonesty or even clear definitions on what constitutes cheating at the university level has left Korean universities in the uncomfortable position of having to implement retroactive punishment for previously vague misconduct outlines. Additionally, many universities expanded large-capacity online lecture offerings in recent years, citing convenience and financial benefits– but a lack of close, in-person student supervision seems ripe for cheating and AI use to flourish.
Korea University, for its part, took the first steps towards outlining AI usage rules after the early November cheating scandal. Their new guidelines are meant to assist instructors on how to effectively design assessments in the era of AI and to help students distinguish when it is appropriate to use AI on schoolwork and exam preparation. More recently, the Korean Ministry of Education declared its intention to publish AI ethics guidelines for college students in the near future.
A pedestrian walking past signage on Yonsei University’s Seoul campus. Source: Korea Joongang Daily.
Why Cheat? Exploring AI Reliance in the Classroom
From the elementary level up to higher education, teachers and students now assume that AI is being used in every level of assessment, from homework to exams. While AI usage itself does not necessarily constitute cheating, sustained reliance on AI to complete coursework may effectively underprepare students when it comes time for evaluation or practical application of classroom knowledge. The short-term benefits of efficiently completing assignments or preparing for exams using AI tools seem too alluring to ignore, though, as over 91% of college students in a 2025 survey admitted to using AI for research on school projects, and over 77% reportedly used it for writing tasks. The use of AI has become so essential to the student experience in recent years that some fear falling behind their peers if they do not engage with the rapidly-evolving technology effectively. One Yonsei student even framed the issue this way: “For online exams, not using AI feels like a disadvantage.” With strong pressure to succeed in school, it is no wonder that the ethical framework around cheating has shifted, as students seem less concerned with academic integrity (through AI or other methods) in a world that encourages getting ahead using any shortcut at your disposal, especially if everyone else is doing it, too.
Teachers, on the other hand, have had a difficult time grappling with their role in the classroom as students become more dependent on AI platforms for learning. In the past, teachers were the main transmitters of knowledge, the ones to whom students turned for answers. However, AI has called this into question, as even top education officials in Korea seem to embrace AI learning platforms. On November 14, the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education posted a video that portrayed AI as more reliable than teachers for explaining concepts to children, seemingly belittling an educator as lacking. Educator uproar ensued, but many expressed that their position has shifted to one that “must supervise and guide AI in the classroom” and that they must adapt to “build new, meaningful relationships with today’s learners.” College professors, too, say that teaching methods “must evolve to foster creativity, rather than relying on conventional lecture-based instruction” in the era of artificial intelligence. It is unclear how exactly to fulfill those goals, but admitting AI’s presence in the classroom is a first step towards realigning education to contend with 21st-century problems.
Moving Forward
As universities around the world grapple with the AI issue and an increase in cheating, it begs the question: what is the current role of higher education in preparing students for their futures? For those students who wish to enter fields with high integration and usage of AI tools, it is certainly worthwhile for them to learn how to utilize and leverage the technology for future use. At the same time, AI might hinder the acquisition and application of problem-solving and critical thinking skills essential to forming an understanding of real-world issues. Some universities in the United States have tackled the AI issue this semester by bringing back in-class pen-and-paper assessments while encouraging the more community-centered, face-to-face aspects of the classroom experience. As AI pushes its way into more areas of daily life, some professors have become more hopeful about the future after students voiced their desire to learn how to think independently and become less reliant on technology. The bottom line is that artificial intelligence is not going anywhere anytime soon, and educational institutions are inevitably faced with redefining their role in producing the next generation of adults well-equipped to engage with this new form of technology.
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