Nearly half of American high school students are now using artificial intelligence tools to guide their college searches, and AI is increasingly influencing which schools they consider — and which ones they cross off their lists — according to a new national survey released Tuesday by EAB, a Washington-based education research and consulting company.
"AI has, in a matter of months, moved from the margins to the mainstream of how teenagers explore colleges," said Madeleine Rhyneer, EAB's vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management. "AI is now shaping first impressions, helping families narrow their options, and influencing real enrollment decisions — often before a college ever has direct contact with a prospective applicant."
The findings land at a moment of significant uncertainty for higher education, where institutions are already battling declining birth rates, affordability concerns, and intensifying skepticism about the value of a four-year degree. AI, the survey suggests, is accelerating all of those pressures simultaneously.
Students described using AI in ways that once would have required a human counselor, college adviser, or parent. Sixty-two percent of AI users said they turned to the tools to find schools that match their academic profile and personal preferences. Nearly half used AI to research application requirements or discover schools they hadn't previously considered. One in four reported having an ongoing conversation with an AI tool about their college search, a dynamic the report describes as AI functioning as "a surrogate for real-world advisors."
Students' own words in the survey capture just how embedded the tools have become. "I explained that I want to stay in state, do not want to spend a lot on college, and want to prioritize my studies," one student wrote. "It confirmed that [school] is the right fit." Another noted: "It's nice how it synthesizes results into one cohesive answer instead of Googling something and searching for a while through different websites."
The shift is reshaping how students first encounter institutions. Rather than starting with a college's website or a counselor's recommendation, students are increasingly filtering their earliest impressions through AI-generated summaries which are drawn from a wide range of sources that colleges may not fully control.
The survey's findings on AI's broader influence on educational decision-making may concern higher education leaders even more than the changes to search behavior.
Forty-three percent of students said they believe AI will influence the career they choose to pursue. Thirty-eight percent said they expect AI will reduce the number of jobs that require a college degree. And 39 percent said advances in AI are pushing them to consider alternatives to college altogether, including starting a business, pursuing an apprenticeship, engaging in self-directed study, or entering the workforce directly.
The most common emotional response students reported when asked how they felt about AI's effect on their futures was uncertainty — selected by 44 percent of respondents. Skepticism (33 percent), concern (32 percent), and anxiety (31 percent) followed close behind. "It feels like AI is 'stealing' all the things," one student wrote in an open-ended response. "I am feeling concerned I won't be able to get a job later because of AI."
Even as AI reshapes how students discover colleges, the survey found a clear backlash against institutions that use AI in their own communications. More than half of students said they would react negatively to messages they perceived as AI-generated. Among students who already believed they had received such messages from colleges, most reported a negative reaction.
"Colleges that succeed in this new environment will use AI to improve relevance and responsiveness while preserving a clear, authentic voice," Rhyneer said, "that fosters ongoing student engagement and genuine relationships with actual school representatives."
The report found that despite this skepticism, personalization can overcome it. EAB's own testing data showed a 29-percentage-point increase in student engagement rates when colleges used hyper-personalized content versus standard outreach — suggesting that the problem is not AI itself, but generic, impersonal execution.
EAB's report urges enrollment leaders to treat AI not merely as a tool for efficiency but as a new information environment requiring strategy. Among the firm's recommendations: optimize institutional websites for AI-driven discovery — what the report calls "Answer Engine Optimization" — audit public-facing data for accuracy, and build messaging around tangible outcomes like career placement rates and alumni success.
"Students are using AI to help them navigate some of the most fundamental questions about higher education, including whether college is worth it at all," Rhyneer said. "EAB is advising our partner institutions to focus messaging around tangible outcomes like skill development and career placement, while also ensuring that curricula evolve to integrate AI fluency."
