How is the rapid adoption of AI affecting international students’ career and programme planning?

Youth unemployment is rising in many countries, and at the same time, more companies are incorporating AI into their day-to-day operations. These interrelated developments are now affecting demand for what has been the most popular field of studies for the past decade: computer sciences. Universities are beginning to respond by altering their programme mix and even developing entire new faculties and colleges.

It isn’t just computer sciences feeling the impact of students’ jitters about AI. Across the board, universities are moving to position their programmes as relevant to students intent on “future proofing” their study choices.

The disruptive effect of new technologies

Between 2005 and 2023, the number of students graduating with computer science degrees in the US quadrupled. These degrees remain very popular among international students: as we speak, 1 in 5 international students in the US is enrolled in computer sciences.

Enrolments in the field first spiked in tandem with rapid Internet adoption, driving a ballooning of job openings in tech companies in the US and around the world. Coders, programmers, designers, etc. enjoyed a heyday of intense competition for their skills. But now that AI can fulfill some coding tasks and lighten the workload of programmers and designers, there is deep concern among students and workers about whether they should begin or continue a career in computer sciences.

As Boston College Professor Chris Glass has written, of all study fields, computer science is “the most likely to be impacted by artificial intelligence, which uniquely targets high-wage cognitive tasks, unlike past technological revolutions that automated physical labor.”

Worries about the extent of AI’s erosion of computing-related jobs is already manifesting in enrolment data. According to the Computing Research Association, a nonprofit that gathers annual data from about 200 US universities, 62% of computing programmes recorded undergraduate enrolment declines in 2025. What’s more, 66% of respondents said that their students graduating with computing majors were struggling to land jobs.

Writing in The Atlantic about computer sciences enrolments declining at Duke, Stanford, and Princeton, Rose Horowitch said:

“If the decline is surprising, the reason for it is fairly straightforward: Young people are responding to a grim job outlook for entry-level coders. In recent years, the tech industry has been roiled by layoffs and hiring freezes. The leading culprit for the slowdown is technology itself. Artificial intelligence has proved to be even more valuable as a writer of computer code than as a writer of words. This means it is ideally suited to replacing the very type of person who built it. A recent Pew study found that Americans think software engineers will be most affected by generative AI. Many young people aren’t waiting to find out whether that’s true.”

Reason for optimism

Rather than panic, says Tom Griffiths, director of the Princeton Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence, students should consider that technology jobs will not disappear, but rather change. He acknowledges that there will be a decrease in so-called cognitive jobs because of AI, but he predicts an increase in “metacognitive jobs, such as knowing enough about software engineering to instruct automated software engineers and systems.” In an interview with the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Mr Griffiths said:

“I can understand why students are trying to model out what the job market is going to look like in a few years when they finish their degrees. But I also think there’s going to be all sorts of things that surprise us in terms of the kinds of jobs that become possible with particular skill sets.”

Similarly, Harvard Business School Professor Suraj Srinivasan has conducted research that found that new jobs are emerging as well as becoming scarcer as a result of AI. He found that after the public launch of Chat GPT in 2022, job postings involving “structured and repetitive tasks, likely replaceable by generative AI,” decreased by -13%. At the same time, employer demand for jobs that require more analytical, technical, or creative work – potentially enhanced by AI – grew +20%.” Professor Srinivasan says: “Rather than solely eliminating jobs, generative AI creates new demand in augmentation-prone roles, suggesting that human-AI collaboration is a key driver of labour market transformation.”

Universities are beginning to create new programmes with this human–AI dynamic in mind. For example, in 2025, the University of South Florida in Tampa attracted more than 3,000 students to its new Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing College. The State University of New York at Buffalo (UB) received US$5 million in funding from New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to launch a standalone Department of AI and Society that offers seven interdisciplinary AI degrees.

The interdisciplinary structure has merit: there is a growing number of job listings asking for candidates with AI skills – and these listings span a multitude of sectors (e.g., tourism, communications, healthcare).

Future proofing

The spectre of AI disrupting the labour force was already on students’ minds in 2024, at a time when the use of generative AI had just hit the mainstream. In a survey conducted in 2024 among more than 1,000 college students by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse, almost two-thirds (64%) of students belonging to the class of 2027 (i.e., graduating that year) said AI had at least somewhat impacted their academic plans.

Knowing how quickly AI is changing the workforce, students are considering the future as much as the present when considering course options. For example, Travis White, an AI and Responsible Communication major at UB, explained the rationale for his choice of programme on the university website: “My thought was that adding this new major would set me apart from the competition and give me some skills that could get me a niche, higher-paying job that may not even exist yet.”

Students are also looking outside of computing and AI

Some students are considering “interpersonal and hands-on” jobs that seem less likely – at least in the near term – to be jeopardised by AI. This trend is underlined by labour market data, as noted in a February 2026 Guardian article:

“While AI is still just one factor among many that are leading to layoffs, ADP, the largest payroll company in the US, found that professional and business services roles, alongside information services jobs in media, telecom and IT, collectively lost 41,000 jobs in December 2025. In that same month, employment grew in healthcare, education and hospitality, per the firm’s data.”

The Guardian interviewed Jasmine Escalera, a career development expert at professional development firm Zety. Ms Escalera spoke to research by the firm that found that “close to half (43%) of Gen Z workers who are anxious about AI are moving away from entry-level corporate and administrative roles and toward careers that rely on ‘human skills’ including creativity, interpersonal connection and hands-on expertise.”

Study after study shows that employers remain interested in hiring people with strong “soft skills” (e.g., empathy, teamwork, communication, and creative problem-solving) – and it may be that the rise of AI will increase this demand. Fields such as the humanities and social sciences – which have been losing enrolments for years – are the very ones that cultivate soft skills, and some universities in the US are leaning into this in their marketing and programme design. They are boldly countering the narrative that the humanities are useless with an assertion that the very reverse is true. As reported in The Hechinger Report in 2025:

“The number of undergraduates majoring in the humanities at the University of Arizona has increased 76 percent since 2018, when it introduced a bachelor’s degree in applied humanities that connects the humanities with programs in business, engineering, medicine and other fields. It also hired a humanities recruitment director and marketing team and started training faculty members to enlist students in the major with the promise that an education in the humanities leads to jobs.”

Similarly, notes the Report, “Georgia Institute of Technology has also started drawing a connection between the humanities and good jobs … which has helped boost undergraduate and graduate enrolment in Georgia Tech’s Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts by 58 percent since 2019.”

The Report cites a real-life example of a student who achieved the ROI she was looking for through a humanities programme: “Olivia Howe was hesitant at first to add French to her major in finance at the University of Arizona, fearing that it wouldn’t be very useful in the labor market. Then her language skills helped her land a job at the multinational technology company Siemens, which will be waiting for her when she graduates this spring.”

Ms Howe commented: “The reason I got the job is because of my French. I didn’t see it as a practical choice, but now I do. The humanities taught me I could do it.”

Quick thinking

The increasing use of AI in workplaces does not mean that human skills are becoming obsolete. Smart universities are setting their students up to work alongside AI and/or in jobs that remain high-touch and hands-on. They are reviewing programme design, positioning, and career services to align with the most important theme in higher education: career outcomes are the top driver of student choice and student satisfaction.