AI did not destabilize education. Education destabilized itself long before AI arrived. What we are witnessing is not disruption, but exposure. A system already strained by its own compromises is now being forced to confront them in public. If artificial intelligence vanished tomorrow, the fundamental problems would still remain. Students would still graduate with impressive transcripts and fragile confidence. Schools would still reward performance over judgment. Institutions would still mistake reassurance for preparation. Far from creating the cracks, AI simply made them impossible to ignore.