Higher education is wrestling with AI strategy: some institutions publish comprehensive campus plans while others still treat AI as a compliance problem. Purdue’s public push for a cohesive AI approach—making ‘AI competence’ a graduation expectation—typifies a proactive stance that university leaders say will reduce confusion across courses. At the same time, community colleges are positioning themselves as the nation’s frontline AI talent pipeline. The National Applied AI Consortium, backed by an NSF grant, centers community colleges in workforce training for applied AI roles, arguing technicians and applied workers—not just elite PhDs—will power sector adoption. The two moves highlight diverging but complementary higher‑ed responses: systemwide policy frameworks at research universities and scalable skills programs at two‑year colleges.