Every few years a new system promises to make college more efficient.
Artificial intelligence will be the biggest one yet.
AI can already write proposals, manage calendars, and answer student emails. AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, will be able to make decisions. It will decide which programs get funded, which students are at risk, and how resources should be used.
When that happens, every office will be asked the same question: what value do you create that a machine cannot?
For most departments the answer will come easily. Admissions will say data. Finance will say reports.
Student Life will have to say meaning.
Life matters because it ends. The same is true for human work.
Events end. Semesters end. College itself only lasts four years. That is what gives it meaning.
AI can predict behavior but it cannot give a reason to care.
That reason is what Student Life professionals build every day through activities, programs, and live experiences.
When a hypnotist fills a room with laughter, when a poet helps students speak their truth, when a comedian breaks tension after a long week, something important happens. Students remember they are part of something alive.
That is the difference between retention and withdrawal.
It is the difference between college as a system and college as a community.
When a corporate consultant reviews a campus budget, Student Activities is often the first target. It looks like an expense that does not scale.
But cutting Student Life to save money is like cutting oxygen to save air.
AI can automate everything except purpose.
If the human part of higher education disappears, enrollment will follow.
Recruitment and retention now depend on one thing: whether a campus can still make students feel something real.
The people who run programs, events, and student organizations already understand change. They adjust every semester. They work with fewer staff and tighter budgets and still find ways to create connection.
That adaptability is what every institution will need to survive automation.
Use AI to manage logistics and free time for creativity.
Use data to track engagement but never to define it.
The future of higher education will belong to the offices that know how to build experiences worth remembering.
At Metropolis Management, we work with Student Life teams who are already preparing for this future.
They know that live programming is not entertainment. It is strategy.
We help campuses protect the human experience inside a system that is becoming more digital every year.
We bring speakers, artists, and performers who make connection visible again.
Our role is to make sure that as AI handles systems, people still handle meaning.
College survives when it creates.
When it stops creating, it starts dying.
AI is not here to destroy higher education. It is here to test what deserves to survive.
If campuses defend their human side, they will last.
If they don’t, they will be replaced by screens.
The future of higher education depends on the same thing that has always kept it alive — curiosity, creativity, and the people willing to keep it human.
📧 Libby@metropolismanagement.com | Michelle@metropolismanagement.com
🌐 www.metropolismanagement.com
📞 Call or Text: (510) 342-9229