Returning to this blog after a busy few weeks, here are links to material that might give law professors – and deans, and provosts – pause. These come in three clusters: budget (cuts), Generative AI (of course), and whether the world respects what higher education is producing, or will. I share these not because they address the specifics of legal education but instead because they bear on the future of the universities of which most law schools are parts.
[1] Universities are cutting budgets. The following lists news items that crossed my metaphorical desk over the last couple of weeks; surely there are more developments in the works or even announced.
“University of Minnesota shares 2-year budget targets across all campuses, colleges and units” (October 13, 2026). The total cuts target 12-15% of “allocated operating revenue.
“Clemson seeks to cut costs with hundreds of voluntary buyouts” (October 23, 2026). Packages are being offered to 452 employees.
“Syracuse University Will Review Its Administrative Offices After Cutting 93 Programs” (October 25, 2026).
“FY28 budget update for non-academic units — Oct. 21, 2026” (University of Maine) (October 21, 2026).
More news of this sort is likely coming.
[2] Generative AI continues to advance, while individuals and organizations continue to sort out just what it’s good for.
Ethan Mollick at the Wharton School, someone I and many others have followed for a long time for his commentary about Generative AI, has a new book out titled “Co-Existence: The Next Phase of AI,” which the website blurbs this way:
How do we live and work with machines that are sometimes—but not always—smarter than we are? A clear‑eyed, humane field guide to the strange in‑between years before whatever comes next.
This Substack post from Mollick gives would-be readers a good taste of where he is coming from and where he is going: “The Overhang: Using your deep knowledge, wide knowledge, taste, and agency.”
Mollick has relatively little to say about institutional implications of his argument, which is to say: how might a department, school, or university get ahead of the proverbial curve that he describes?
[3] What does a university degree represent, in a Generative AI environment?
Kyle Saunders, a political scientist at Colorado State, writes a thoughtful Substack about the politics of Generative AI and the politics of higher education. This recent thought-provoking piece summarizes a lot of his writing. He talks about how Generative AI is changing the structural conditions inside the university that helped to persuade the world outside the university to trust and rely on student transcripts, certificates and degrees, and institutional accreditation : “Higher Ed, We Have to Realize That Fewer People Take Our Word for It Anymore: Verification from above, verification from below, and a rising AI floor.”
