The debate about homework effectiveness as a learning tool has continued for more than a century. There are many papers about homework effect on the learning process of schoolchildren. The aim of this article is to analyse the role of homework in the process of mathematics teaching at universities on the basis of the authors’ experience working with students from three faculties of the Riga Technical University. The report includes a description of the system of homework assignments and their weight in the evaluation of students in mathematics courses. Some types of homework are mandatory for first-year students in all mathematics courses regardless of level, number of hours, or topics included in the course. The authors of the paper review the advantages and disadvantages of these types of homework. The influence of homework on student knowledge and skills is analysed in the article. Two similar surveys about the role of homework in the mathematics teaching-learning process were conducted for groups of students of different specialities of RTU before and after the COVID period (at the beginning of 2020 and the end of 2023). The results of these surveys are also analysed in this paper from two perspectives: to understand the role of homework in the teaching process and to analyse the influence of the online study period during COVID-19 on the completion of homework assignments by students. The report also includes a discussion of using ChatGPT in homework. The conclusion of the necessity of homework is mainly driven by the analysis of the surveys and the detected correlation between the students’ homework results and results in the tests and exams.