Students say peers finish AI coursework in minutes. England's university regulator wants exams back

England's university regulator says AI has broken a large share of the way degrees are graded. In a report published Wednesday, the Office for Students (OfS) said many unsupervised assessments "can be completed to a high standard using AI tools without substantive engagement from students." Students told researchers that peers finished assignments with AI "sometimes in just a few minutes" and got grades similar to those who did the work themselves, the OfS said. Its answer is a return to secure, AI-free testing such as closed-book exams, presentations and oral exams. Universities that fail to adapt could face fines or lose access to funding.

The OfS called AI "a generational risk to the system as it stands." That puts pressure on a sector that leaned hard on take-home coursework and remote exams after the pandemic.

What the regulator found#

The research was run by the OfS and Advance HE, a charity focused on university teaching and governance. Researchers spoke with 244 staff and 91 students from at least 127 universities and colleges, the BBC reported. The work ran from June to September 2026, the OfS said. It was based on roundtables and interviews, not a statistical survey, so it shows the shape of the problem rather than its exact size.

The main findings, from the full OfS report:

• Where assessments are unsupervised, "it is frequently possible to complete them to a high standard using AI tools without demonstrating the knowledge and skills they are intended to test."
• AI detection tools "do not consistently and reliably identify AI use."
• Students are often unclear about whether they may use AI in assessed work. It is "usually not possible" to prove whether a student broke the rules.
• AI literacy training for staff is often optional, and take-up is low.

The quotes from staff were blunt. "AI has put academic integrity at serious risk … coursework is now overwhelmingly written in part, or exclusively, with the help of AI," one academic told the researchers, according to The Guardian. Another said AI "may render our assessment of students close to impossible in some areas."

"Some students described their peers being unable to recall basic details about the assessment they had just submitted," the report noted, according to The Guardian.

The BBC's post on the report framed it in one line.

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Which tests still work#

The report sorts assessments by how easy they are to fake. Formats done at home or online are the weak spots. Formats done in a room, in person, hold up best.

More exposed to AI	More secure
Essays and coursework done at home	Closed-book written exams
Dissertations	Oral exams (vivas)
Open-book and remote online exams	Presentations and practical tests

Sources: Office for Students, The Guardian, BBC News.

Remote online exams spread widely during Covid. Research from Swansea University last year suggested 93 UK universities still use them in some form, the BBC said.

The OfS does not call for a ban on AI. It says courses that build AI into assessment "in a controlled way" can be positive, but they need careful design. Its test is simple: "If it becomes possible to complete an assessment using AI without the knowledge and skills being tested, the assessment should be replaced."

Prediction market Polymarket shared the news as "UK universities regulator urges schools to bring back paper exams." That framing is a little stronger than the report, which pushes for secure assessment of several kinds, not just written papers.

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The money at stake for universities#

This is a regulatory warning with teeth. The OfS said it will require institutions to make sure assessments are "valid and reliable measures of students' knowledge and skills," and that "in many cases, this will require the use of secure (AI-free) assessments." Where institutions fall short, it listed the tools it can use:

• Specific conditions on a university's registration
• Monetary penalties
• Suspending access to student support funding or OfS grant funding

The OfS also said it will not write new AI rules. It will apply its existing ones, it said on a separate page. Under a proposed new approach to quality, universities would have to show that their assessments still measure real skills in the age of AI. Separately, universities that miss OfS quality standards could be barred from charging higher tuition fees or face caps on student numbers under proposals now out for consultation, the BBC reported.

The government is backing the push. "We expect universities to take this issue seriously and we expect the OfS to both enforce the existing standards effectively, and work at pace to ensure its regulatory framework is explicit, strong and durable on the use of AI," a Department for Education spokesperson told The Guardian.

There is a cost to this. Exams in halls cost more to run than essays uploaded online. They need rooms, staff to supervise, and marking time. Oral exams take even more staff hours. That is the business problem behind the policy: the cheap, scalable assessment model that AI has broken is being replaced with a slower, more expensive one.

How universities and students responded#

Universities UK, which represents more than 140 institutions, said its members are adapting. "There is further to go but many have made substantial changes to how they assess students," a spokesperson said, pointing to "more in-person exams, presentations, vivas, process-based assessment and assessments that integrate AI in a controlled way."

The National Union of Students went further. Lewis Wilson of the NUS said AI was exposing "traditional" methods, including essays, that students and staff "have long said is not fit for purpose," the BBC reported.

Students on Reddit had seen this coming. A thread on r/UniUK about two months ago asked: "Are some uni courses abandoning at-home coursework because everyone cheats with AI? Is assessment moving to in-class exams only?"

Why it matters beyond England#

The report also says students want more AI training, because they see AI skills as key to getting hired. That tension runs through the whole debate. Employers want graduates who can use AI, as the latest tech hiring data shows in our report on the tech job market. Universities now have to teach those skills while proving that a degree still means the student can do the work alone.

Governments elsewhere are also moving from guidance to enforcement on AI. Australia announced a dedicated AI safety regulator this week, as we covered in our Australia report. England's move is narrower, but it shows the same shift: regulators are no longer just asking institutions to manage AI risk. They are threatening penalties if they don't.

What to watch in England#

• Assessment redesign. Watch for more universities in England to add in-person exams and vivas, as many already have, to stay on the right side of the OfS.
• Quality submissions. If the proposed quality approach goes ahead, universities will need to show the OfS how their tests hold up against AI.
• Advance HE's program. The charity plans an AI-focused "Change Academy" for member institutions early in 2027.

The bottom line: the OfS is telling universities that take-home grading can no longer be trusted by default. The cost of fixing that will land on universities, and the risk of not fixing it will land on the value of the degree.

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