Brown University AI Cheating Scandal Triggers Grade Collapse in In‑Person Finals

Economics professor Roberto Serrano at Brown University warned that a take‑home midterm exam produced a 96 % average, with many students achieving perfect scores that matched ChatGPT responses. He alleged widespread AI‑assisted cheating involving roughly 86 students.

In response, the university reverted to a traditional, proctored final exam. The class average then fell to 48.6 %, the lowest ever recorded for the course, with 19 students failing and several dropping out. Serrano described the administration’s handling of individual cheating cases as "meek" and called for stronger institutional measures.

The pattern mirrors findings from other research: a Chinese study of 26,000 school‑age students reported rising homework grades but a 20 % drop in exam scores after AI use, while a UC‑Berkeley analysis of a large Texas university found a 13‑point increase in A grades for assignments susceptible to AI. These studies suggest that AI can inflate unsupervised homework performance while undermining performance on supervised exams.