Turnitin executives did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story. Worldwide, the company licenses its software to more than 16,000 institutions that cumulatively enroll over 71 million students. Almost three-quarters of California community colleges now use it, as does the entire California State University system, except Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Cal Poly canceled its contract last year saying not enough faculty used Turnitin to justify the cost, but not before it spent $171,000 on the detectors from 2020 to 2024. Cal State campuses have spent a combined $6 million on Turnitin since 2019 alone, according to records obtained by CalMatters and The Markup. Several University of California campuses spend more than $100,000 per year on the detector, which Turnitin licenses for a per-student fee., This investigation chronicles the dominance of Turnitin, which continues to collect millions of dollars every year from California colleges and universities despite its unsophisticated technology and its demand for a perpetual license to the student work it scans., Artificial Intelligence California colleges spend millions to catch plagiarism and AI. Is the faulty tech worth it? Colleges and universities renew Turnitin subscriptions year after year even though its flawed detectors are expensive and require students to let the company keep their papers forever. By Tara García Mathewson.