**Claim:** By 2035, AI substitution for grading, tutoring, and TA labor will cut instructional staffing cost per student credit hour by ≥25% from 2025 levels at US four-year institutions outside the top-50 national universities, and published real tuition at teaching-focused regional colleges will be flat or falling as the savings are competed away.

**Mechanism:** AI absorbs the labor-intensive, low-prestige parts of instruction first (grading, section support, routine feedback). Institutions that sell only teaching must pass savings through in price; credential-selling elites absorb savings as margin or research spend.

**Falsified if:** instructional labor's share of operating budgets is stable or rising in 2035 IPEDS data, or real published tuition at teaching-focused regionals continues rising above 2%/year through 2035.