Debate Practice is Becoming Essential For College Readiness

Sending students to college without debate experience is like sending them without ever having written a paper.

Professors are starting to realize AI can write papers as well or better than their students, and in ways they cannot detect and practically penalize.

Professors are also starting to realize that students need to develop oral communication and judgement skills in an AI world.

What are they turning to? Debate.

Essay —

A couple recent editorials make a strong case —

Americans have lost faith in higher education — debate can help restore it

Arguing for AI in the Classroom

As more college courses more toward debate as essential pedagogy and assessment—and they must, because AI demands it—then K-12 education faces an urgent equity question: Who gets prepared for this future?

Right now, debate remains largely the province of well-resourced schools and self-selected students. But if debating becomes how universities assess learning across disciplines, if it becomes the signature pedagogy of higher education in the AI age, then access to debate preparation becomes a matter of educational necessity. Students arriving at college without these skills will face a fundamentally different, more difficult educational experience than their debate-prepared peers.

This isn’t about everyone becoming a competitive debater. It’s about Universal Basic Debate—ensuring all students develop facility with constructing arguments, engaging with evidence, listening actively to opposition, and thinking on their feet under intellectual pressure. These are the skills that define educated participation in the AI era.