Gender Gap in AI Usage in U.S. Colleges
Gender Gap in AI Usage in U.S. Colleges
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The usage of generative AI in higher education has become more and more prevalent, assisting college students with coursework, career aspirations, and daily administrative tasks. With the potential to lower educational barriers by making learning and information accessible, AI literacy is a critical skill for students to build and maintain, especially for those who are disadvantaged. I am interested in the ways genAI usage is not uniform among students, and why this inequality exists.
Background: My interest in this topic initially came from a conversation I had about the findings from a working paper about the global gender gap in the usage of AI by a Stanford economics PhD student, Katelyn Cranney. Institutional, organizational, and social frictions lead to persistent gaps in AI users, especially between men and women. I thought that this paper was a direct example of considering cultural and and institutional legitimacy in regards to the affordances of genAI tools, as described by this paper I read in school.
Findings from a paper in 2025.
Moving Forward: Over the summer I designed and executed a handful of semi-structured interviews to find the best practices for explaining and talking about the topic of AI usage in college. I hope to incorporate findings from both semi-structured interviews as well as surveys at UCSD in order to analyze the social considerations around genAI usage that may differ between male and female students.
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