AI Boom Reshapes Campus: College Students Push for Ethical AI Skills as Computer Science Enrollment Drops

At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science

With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said. Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers -- work increasingly done by AI agents -- and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates -- regardless of their field -- are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. "We have to democratize it," said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer science majors. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy," he said. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There's a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating. Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science -- and particularly AI-enhanced coding -- has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors -- like physicists and biologists -- often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain -- an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?" ____ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The student "AI revolt" is mostly a myth, survey finds

The boos aimed at AI at last spring's graduations suggested a student backlash. A three-year survey of business students tells a different story: AI use has become routine, employers are pulling for it, and students want to be taught to use it well, not shielded from it. The boos at last spring's graduations suggested a student revolt against AI. The data points the other way. Among business students at one Washington school, regular AI use has quietly become the norm, and the loudest demand is not to ban it but to teach it. The figures come from a three-year survey at American University's Kogod School of Business, shared first with Axios. The share of students using AI 11 or more times a week climbed from 6.2% in 2024 to 29% this year, the report found. More than 80% had used AI for coursework in the past six months. Employers are pulling Part of the pull comes from the job market. Interviews with AI questions rose from 11.6% in 2024 to 42.6% this year. Students have noticed. Prompt engineering is the top skill they want taught, and coding has leapt into second place, from under 4% to nearly 20% in a year. It reads like a shift from dabbling to the interview room. The tools split by age. Undergraduates favour ChatGPT; graduate students lean towards Claude. Perplexity topped raw usage, though every student surveyed had free Perplexity Pro through a campus deal, which flatters the number. When students picked a tool, accuracy mattered most. The anxiety underneath None of this means students are uncritical. Nearly half of those at Kogod said they worried about academic integrity. In a separate Inside Higher Ed survey, 40% said they feared AI was eroding their ability to think for themselves. The message is not rejection. It is a request for clearer rules. There is a paradox buried in the numbers. Brainstorming is the single most common use of AI, and has been for three years. Yet Wharton researchers found that people generated a wider range of ideas using their own thoughts and web searches than when they leaned on ChatGPT. The most popular use may be the one that quietly narrows thinking. Schools are still working it out Institutions are lurching between extremes. Faculty first tried to make assignments "AI-proof," Kogod's interim dean Casey Evans said, then gave up on it. The new approach is blunter: staff drop a student's work into AI, tell them the result is a C, then coach them towards an A. She says resistance has been rare. Elsewhere the mood is the opposite. Some universities have handed AI the job of watching students sit exams, and others, including Brown, have retreated to in-person, handwritten papers. Detection tools and cheating tools keep chasing each other. The classroom has not settled on an answer. The Kogod numbers carry a caveat. They are self-reported, from 483 students at one school. But larger surveys point the same way: Inside Higher Ed found 85% had used AI for coursework, and Gallup put weekly use at 57%. The graduation boos were real. So is the adaptation. Students walking into an AI-shaped job market may not love it, but they are preparing for it.

Exclusive: College students want ethical AI

Why it matters: The chorus of AI boos at college graduations last spring doesn't tell the whole story: Students increasingly see AI as a critical job skill but want more guidance on using it responsibly. The big picture: Those commencement jeers aimed at AI boosterism captured real anxiety about the future. But most students aren't fully avoiding the technology. * Undergraduate and graduate business students want "more structured preparation to use AI effectively, ethically, and competitively in the workplace," per the study. * "We haven't encountered a lot of resistance," Kogod interim dean Casey Evans tells Axios. "We're very intentional," she says, as opposed to forcing AI on students with no choice. "They are really using AI as one of many tools in their toolbox." By the numbers: Kogod's survey suggests AI has moved from a novelty to a routine part of student life, with more than 80% of college students using AI academically in the past six months. * Nearly a third of students are now using it 11 or more times a week for school or work-related tasks. * Some professors are still putting blanket bans on AI. But employers are not: The share of job interviews that included AI-related questions has jumped from 11.6% to 42.6% over the past three years. Caveat: The survey's three-year span gives it a rare longitudinal view of changing student behavior, though it reflects just 483 business students at Kogod and may not generalize to all colleges. Yes, but: Other studies reflect similar findings. According to an Inside Higher Ed flash survey of 1,038 two- and four-year students, 85% said they used generative AI for coursework in the past 12 months. * Similarly, a Gallup poll from April found that more than half (57%) of U.S. college students use AI "at least weekly" and one in five say they use it daily. Students do have concerns, however. One of those is AI dependence, with 40% of students in the Inside Higher Ed survey saying they're concerned that AI is reducing their and their peers' ability to think independently. * Over half of Kogod students, meanwhile, say they're concerned about academic integrity and the use of AI. Between the lines: American University's report shows that students say they want clearer norms around AI use, ethics and how to preserve their own thinking alongside use of tools. * Kogod's business school is already teaching students how to use AI responsibly, Evans says. * When ChatGPT first came out, Evans says, faculty focused on academic integrity, fighting against AI and making sure all assignments were "AI-proof." * "We've moved on pretty quickly from that," she says. "We've accepted that this is something that students will use" which means faculty members completely reevaluating their role in the classroom and what the classroom looks like. * "We'll drop an assignment into AI and say, 'What you just got back is a C. Now let's talk about how you get to an A,'" Evans says. What we're watching: The report says the most popular use case for AI in college over the past three years has been brainstorming. * But brainstorming with AI could also stifle creativity: Last year Wharton found that people came up with a broader range of creative ideas when they used their own thoughts and web searches, compared with when they used ChatGPT. * Idea variance can come from using ChatGPT to generate ideas, while also brainstorming your own ideas and collecting original ideas from others. The bottom line: Students may not love the AI-shaped future awaiting them, but they know that they need to prepare for it.

Computer science enrollment is plunging, but AI is taking over the rest of the college campus as it reshapes how students learn and work | Fortune

For more than a decade, computer science was considered one of higher education's safest bets, as tech companies' appetite for skilled coders drove a surge in student enrollment. Now, enrollment is falling. Undergraduate enrollment in computer and information sciences at four-year institutions declined 8.4% in spring 2026 from a year earlier, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The decline followed a 3.6% drop from a year prior in fall 2025, when graduate enrollment in the field also fell 14% over the same period. Still, the enrollment declines don't mean students are losing interest in technology. Instead, they may be looking at increasing their tech knowledge alongside other interests, says one expert. Colby College, a small liberal arts university in Waterville, Maine, is one example of how universities are responding to the enrollment shift by incorporating AI education outside the computer science department and teaching students to combine technical expertise with other fields they are interested in. "The vision is really around an interdisciplinary approach to AI," said David Watts, director of Colby's Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence. "A lot of the challenges around AI go a lot further than the AI itself." A computer science major who graduated from liberal arts-focused Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., Watts joined Colby last year after a two-decade long career at IBM. Surprisingly, even at IBM, one of the largest technology companies in the world, Watts said he noticed even highly trained engineers sometimes struggled to adapt as technology changed. For his part, he attributed much of his own ability to move between fields and develop new ideas to his undergraduate liberal arts education. At Colby, Watts is now trying to apply those learnings to a new generation of students on the verge of entering a shaky labor market just as generative AI changes how nearly every profession operates. The Davis Institute at Colby was established in 2021 with a $30 million gift as the first cross-disciplinary AI institute at a liberal arts college. The institute's goal is to integrate AI across disciplines at the University while paying close attention to ethical considerations. That strategy was on display this summer in an eight-week "Interdisciplinary Summer Bridges" program run by the Davis Institute in collaboration with Colby's Halloran Lab for Entrepreneurship. A group of 30 students representing 23 majors or intended majors participated, said Watts, ranging from rising sophomores to seniors. No previous programming experience was required. Students spent the first half of the program learning AI fundamentals while examining ethical questions about its use. They then formed teams with students from different majors and backgrounds and developed seven projects addressing real-world problems, for example a no-code AI tool intended to eliminate legacy biases in automated hiring or an AI-assisted legal citation verification tool for law students and legal professionals, Watts said. In the final week, the students used what they learned during the program to develop an idea combining tech with another area of interest and then pitched it to a panel of judges that included Kathryn Guarini, a former IBM chief information officer who now teaches at the Yale School of Management. Colby is not the only university increasingly incorporating AI into education, even for non-computer science majors. The University of Florida now offers more than 200 AI-related courses across all 16 of its colleges, with 14,000 students enrolled annually. The university claims 71% of graduates in the Spring 2026 commencement cycle took at least one AI course during their time at the University. At the same time, Ohio State University last year introduced an AI fluency initiative to ensure every student, starting with the class of 2029, will be "fluent" in AI related to their major by graduation day. Increasingly, universities are trying to prepare students for a world in which AI is present in nearly every job, even as the traditional computer science pipeline declines. On the flipside, Watts said students are also starting to realize that they don't need to major in computer science to learn technology -- which might just be a good thing, he said. A psychology student, for example, might learn enough about AI to develop tools for behavioral health without becoming a software engineer, he added. "The more you collaborate and bring additional fields to bear, the better you can tackle different perspectives," he said. Still, Watts rejected the idea that programming expertise will become unnecessary anytime in the future. Engineers will still need to code, and, even more importantly, they'll need to have the knowledge necessary to know when AI gets things wrong. Still, it's clear, he said, that the future of technology in education can no longer be confined to the four walls of the computer science building. "I'm not an advocate to say that computer science is no longer needed," Watts said. "It's just that the nature of how you apply that knowledge is changing."

The AI boom has college majors of all types dabbling in computer science

Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science -- and particularly AI-enhanced coding -- has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors -- like physicists and biologists -- often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain -- an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?" The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

The computer science major is dying so that the AI literacy minor can be born: 'we have to democratize it' | Fortune

With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said. Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers -- work increasingly done by AI agents -- and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates -- regardless of their field -- are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. "We have to democratize it," said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer science majors. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy," he said. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There's a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating. Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science -- and particularly AI-enhanced coding -- has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors -- like physicists and biologists -- often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain -- an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?" ____ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

At Colleges, the AI Boom Means Everyone Wants to Dabble in Computer Science

With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said. Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers -- work increasingly done by AI agents -- and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates -- regardless of their field -- are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. "We have to democratize it," said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer science majors. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy," he said. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There's a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating. Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science -- and particularly AI-enhanced coding -- has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors -- like physicists and biologists -- often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain -- an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?" ____ The Associated Press' education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

This New Field of Study Is Giving College Students an 'Edge' in the Job Market

The new offerings show that AI literacy is becoming a baseline expectation for graduates. College students may boo graduation speakers who positively mention AI, but AI classrooms are overflowing. Everyone from business students to music majors now want to learn how to work with the machines that could impact their careers. According to a recent report from the Associated Press, hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers as companies hand off more work to AI. Simultaneously, enrollment in computer science college programs has been trending down. Yet on campuses nationwide, professors say they are busier than ever. They are leading packed lectures and workshops for students across majors who want to better understand AI. Colleges are racing to keep up with this shift in demand. They know that new graduates, no matter what they studied, are now walking into interviews where employers expect them to talk credibly about their AI skills. One example is Faith Maeba, a 21-year-old psychology major at Virginia Commonwealth University who is entering her final year of college. Maeba's mother encouraged her to take AI classes, and at first, she was reluctant to add to her course load. However, when she looked into graduate school, she found that AI was changing the field of psychology and that having an understanding of the technology would be useful to further her career. Maeba decided to minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said in an interview with the Associated Press. Schools are adapting to AI demand On the teaching side of things, professors are developing courses to keep up with AI demand. At the University of Texas at Austin, professor Peter Stone, the chair of computer science, recently came up with an introductory course on AI. He designed the course to teach essentials to students in majors outside of computer science. "We have to democratize it," Stone told the Associated Press. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy." Meanwhile, at Northwestern University, computer science faculty are so busy teaching AI courses that the department is trying to hire three more professors. The college offers a popular AI minor and recently added an AI major. It is reducing prerequisites so that students can take an AI or machine learning class without majoring in computer science or AI, opening the doors to non-degree students. Samir Khuller, Northwestern's chair for computer science, told the Associated Press that "overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward." Interdisciplinary courses are popular too. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, a music professor is co-teaching a class next year with a computer science professor. The course will be a haven for musicians and artists as well as computer science majors. Colleges aren't just changing their course materials; they are also rebuilding their curriculum around AI. Purdue University now has an AI graduation requirement, meaning students must show that they have AI skills before they get their diplomas. At the same time, at Harvard, professors are weaving AI into freshman writing courses.

computer science course: At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science

But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said. Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers - work increasingly done by AI agents - and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates - regardless of their field - are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. "We have to democratize it," said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer science majors. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy," he said. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There's a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating. Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science - and particularly AI-enhanced coding - has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors - like physicists and biologists - often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain - an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?"

College students' use of AI has surged -- despite boos at graduation ceremonies

The share of business school students relying on artificial intelligence as a routine part of their academic experience has surged over the past few years, according to a new survey - even as grads have heckled pro-AI speakers in high-profile incidents at spring graduation ceremonies, highlighting anxiety around the tech. The share of business students regularly using AI jumped from 6% to 29% over the past three years, according research from American University's Kogod School of Business. More than 80% of college students have used AI for academic purposes in the past six months, according to the survey, and nearly a third now use it 11 or more times a week for school or work-related tasks. The survey, first reported by Axios, was conducted in from 2024 to 2026 and received responses from 483 business students. About three in four students surveyed said they use AI to help them brainstorm ideas, while just over half said they use the tech to help them find sources of information and 62% said they use it as a summarization tool. Nearly nine in 10 students said they used AI from Perplexity, 79% reported ChatGPT was their preferred model, and 39% cited Anthropic's Claude. Meanwhile, employers are increasingly seeking applicants with AI skills. The share of job interviews that included AI-related questions rose to 43% from 12% over the same three-year period - even as some instructors impose outright bans on the technology's use in coursework. "We haven't encountered a lot of resistance," Casey Evans, interim dean at Kogod, told Axios, adding that the school hasn't forced students to use AI without guidance. Other research points to similar trends. An Inside Higher Ed flash survey of 1,038 second- and fourth-year students found 85% had fired up AI models to help them with coursework in the past year. An April Gallup poll said 57% of US college students use AI at least weekly, with one in five saying they rely on it daily. Still, students are have some apprehensions about AI. Forty percent of students in the Inside Higher Ed survey said they're concerned AI is hindering their and their peers' ability to think independently. More than half of Kogod students said they are concerned about issues of academic honesty tied to AI use. That animosity has flared up at graduation ceremonies. In May, for instance, a real estate bigwig faced mockery and boos for declaring that "artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution" during her commencement address at the University of Central Florida.

AI boom drives students across majors to study computer science

With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence. But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said. Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers -- work increasingly done by AI agents -- and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence. Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates -- regardless of their field -- are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers. "We have to democratize it," said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer science majors. "In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy," he said. Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There's a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating. Computer science faculty pivot to teach non-majors At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn't enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That's because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity. But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern's computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors. Among other changes across the university, Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% at four-year institutions from the spring of 2025, according to the latest data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, a dip that came as job postings for software developers dropped. Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science -- and particularly AI-enhanced coding -- has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI. Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors -- like physicists and biologists -- often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education. Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it's going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won't understand the basic concepts in their field. "When you ask the AI to do it for you, on the surface it might just seem it is writing the code," he said. "But under the hood, it's actually also doing the understanding of the task for you." AI has prompted unusually fast changes in course offerings Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education, who studies AI's impact on higher education. "It's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now," said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees. Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach nontechies to create working software. "What AI does is shrink that distance between a complete novice and an expert," said Grant Carlson, program coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers. At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs. "Now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks," Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said. More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU's AI minor, Althea Pappas said she's exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions. "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year. Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain -- an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded. "If I am going to try to make people's brain the best it can be, well, then," the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, "why not study AI?"