From Chaos to Clarity: A Framework for Program-Level AI Learning Outcomes

Abstract

Industry is leaning into generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), and higher education is under pressure to prepare graduates for a GenAI-augmented workforce. Yet, there is still no clear structure for defining AI readiness across disciplines, programs, courses, and assignments. Current approaches often rely on broad institutional policies or individual course-level decisions, which can also create mixed messages for students, fragmented expectations across programs, and limited visibility for university leaders. In this paper, we argue that higher education needs a more coherent way to connect institutional priorities to curriculum-level action. We propose Program-Level AI Learning Outcomes (PLAI-LOs) as a framework for defining what students graduating from a program should know and be able to do with, without, and about GenAI in a given discipline. The PLAI-LOs framework complements existing program-level learning outcomes and supports alignment across institutional priorities, program-level AI learning outcomes, course-level learning outcomes, and assignment-level objectives. We illustrate the framework with examples from computing and music and show how PLAI-LOs can be implemented through artifact-level GenAI policies, helping programs decide where GenAI should be taught and used, and when students should be expected to work without GenAI. We offer PLAI-LOs as a concrete, measurable, and adaptable path for moving higher education from scattered GenAI rules toward a strategy with clear, learning-centered alignment.