As 2025 draws to a close, it’s worth stepping back and surveying the higher education landscape: Where has innovation taken us? What tensions have emerged? What patterns will continue into 2026?
This year was marked by a convergence of forces: AI moving from experimental to essential, assessment practices evolving to match that shift, and a renewed urgency around student well-being and equity. Below are six trends that defined education in 2025 — and what they mean for instructors, institutions, and edtech providers alike.
1. AI Moves From Novelty to Norm
In 2025, AI in higher education stopped being a fringe experiment and became standard operational practice – whether instructors were ready for that or not. A key signal: in the Student Generative AI Survey 2025, usage leapt from 66% in 2024 to 92% of students reporting use of AI in some form this year. Nearly half of students said AI is now essential in their work, despite only a third having formal training in its use.
Institutions, too, are embracing AI in administrative and pedagogical workflows. EDUCAUSE data shows that 54% of higher education institutions are using AI to support curriculum design, and 52% are automating administrative workflows. Meanwhile, Ellucian reports that 80% of higher ed administrators are motivated to adopt AI for improved efficiency, and 85% expect growth in predictive enrollment models use cases in the near future.
However, adoption isn’t universal or frictionless: policy, resource constraints, and concerns about integrity remain barriers. Over 60% of CTOs voice concern about the impact of AI on academic integrity, even as enthusiasm grows.
What to watch: AI policy will be a battleground and how institutions regulate, scaffold, and integrate AI will define whether it helps or disrupts learning.
2. Assessment Astuteness: Authenticity Over Surveillance
As AI becomes pervasive, attempts to “AI-proof” exams are increasingly viewed as limited or even counterproductive. Instead, educators began gravitating toward paper-based or in class authentic assessments — tasks that replicate complex, real-world problem solving, reflection, collaboration, and iteration rather than rote responses.
In parallel, institutions are revisiting rubrics, scaffolding, and formative assessment strategies. The shift is away from policing and toward designing assessments that reward critical thinking, metacognition, and context-aware reasoning.
Because AI can generate plausible but shallow responses, assignments that demand originality, process documentation, or multi-stage deliverables gained traction in 2025. Assessment design started catching up with the tech.
3. Well-being & Empathy Move to Center Stage
This year, student mental health and emotional support weren’t afterthoughts, they were central to the student experience.
Universities Canada claims that 75% of post-secondary students report struggling with their mental health, and 70% say their academic performance has been harmed by it. More than 66% reported overwhelming anxiety, and nearly half (46%) have experienced depression.
These statistics underscore a harsh reality: many students are learning under conditions of stress, uncertainty, and emotional strain. In response, campuses expanded access to counseling, offered flexible policies, and experimented with check-in systems, resource hubs, and peer supports.
For instructors, the lesson is clear: small gestures matter — signaling empathy, checking in midterm, and linking to mental health supports aren’t extra. They’re essential.
4. Hybrid Learning Matures
In 2020–2022, hybrid or blended models were reactive experiments. In 2025, they matured into deliberate designs.
The modality is no longer “online or in class” but integrated. Some students expect seamless transitions between digital and physical spaces. Assessment flows, collaboration, and feedback loops must function smoothly regardless of location.
Institutions refined hybrid best practices: modular content delivery, consistency in deadlines and workflows, and redundant pathways (e.g. paper + digital submission). Students now require parity, not “second-class” versions of the learning experience whether remote or face-to-face.
Platforms that support both in-person and online assessment, digital grading, comment workflows, and seamless transitions gained strategic importance. (Yes, you can nod to how tools like Crowdmark, with dual workflows, aid that integration.)
5. Equity, Inclusion & Assessment Accountability
2025 saw deeper conversations about equity – not just access, but fairness in assessment.
Multimodal assessments (e.g., written, oral, video, design portfolios) became more common to accommodate diverse learning styles. In some regions, universities tightened legislation: for example, in Ontario a new minister’s directive mandates that public colleges and universities maintain transparent student mental health policies, including reporting requirements by early 2025.
Many instructors embraced universal design for learning, giving students multiple ways to demonstrate understanding. Assessments that once relied solely on essays or written exams now make space for visual, verbal, or applied demonstrations of learning.
6. AI Literacy & Ethical Use Take Root
As AI became ubiquitous, one of 2025’s key trends was literacy training and ethics integration.
Yes, students are heavy AI users: 86% globally report using AI in their studies, with 54% doing so weekly. In the UK alone, 92% of undergraduates now use AI in some capacity. Yet many report being underprepared: in one survey, 58% felt they lacked sufficient AI knowledge or skills, and 48% felt unprepared for an AI-enabled workforce.
Institutions responded with curricula and guides. Many universities now encourage AI use, providing sample syllabi or guidance documents: among U.S. research universities, over 63% now encourage GenAI use in teaching.
AI literacy is no longer optional, but it’s essential. The goal may not be to ban AI, but to help students think critically about how they use it: checking facts, understanding how tools reach their conclusions, citing properly, and using AI to enhance their work rather than replace it.
How Crowdmark uses AI: AI-assisted grading, matching, analytics – when designed thoughtfully – can free instructors’ bandwidth for more meaningful work (mentorship, reflection, dialogue). The trick is building these tools as partners, not replacements.
Looking Forward to 2026
If 2025 was the year of normalization for AI, for empathy, and for hybrid design then 2026 may well be the year of refinement and accountability.
Some predictions:
- Policy frameworks will solidify. As AI becomes part of everyday practice, institutions and governments will develop clearer, more consistent regulations.
- Assessment refinement will continue. Expect more rubrics, audit tools, scaffolding, and multimodal assignments.
- Focus on instructor support. Burnout, workload, and tool training will be key battlegrounds.
- Human-first tech design. The best platforms will blend automation with human agency, giving instructors agency and students transparency.
Final Thoughts
2025 was a tipping point in higher education. AI stopped being futuristic jargon and started reshaping the everyday. Assessment practices began shifting toward authenticity and equity. Student well-being became nonnegotiable. And the hybrid classroom became the new normal.
But tools and trends are only half the story. The constant is still human connection: instructors listening, designing with empathy, and helping students become thinkers, not just task-doers.
In 2026, the institutions and platforms that succeed won’t be those with cleverest tech but those with clearest purpose.