A.I. Degrees Boom as Students Prepare for an Uncertain Job Market
When Chris Callison-Burch first started teaching an A.I. course at the University of Pennsylvania in2018, his inaugural class had about 100 students. Seven years later, enrollment has swelled to roughly 400—excluding another 250 students attending remotely and an additional 100 to 200 on the waiting list. The professor now teaches in the largest classroom on campus. If his course grew any bigger, he’d need to move into the school’s sports stadium.
“I would love to think that’s all because I’m a dynamic lecturer,” Callison-Burch told Observer. “But it’s really a testament to the popularity of the field.”
Demand for A.I. courses and degrees has soared across higher education as the technology plays an increasingly central role in daily life and begins to encroach on once-popular fields like computer science. Amid uncertainty about the future of the labor market, students are seeking to prepare for an A.I.-dominated economy by immersing themselves in the field.
Universities have followed suit. Schools like Carnegie Mellon and Purdue University are among a number offering undergraduate or graduate degrees in A.I., a trend expected to accelerate in the coming years. The University of Pennsylvania recently became the first Ivy League school to offer both undergraduate and graduate A.I. programs. Its graduate curriculum includes courses in natural language processing and machine learning, in addition to required classes on technology ethics and the broader legal landscape.
The demand is widespread. The University of Buffalo’s A.I. master’s program enrolled 103 students last year, up from just five in its inaugural 2020 cohort. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undergraduate enrollment in A.I. has jumped from 37 students in 2022 to more than 300. Miami Dade College has seen a 75 percent increase in enrollment in its A.I. programs since 2022, while its other programs have remained relatively steady aside from a “slight decrease in computer science,” the school told Observer.
Callison-Burch, who also serves as faculty director of Penn’s online A.I. master’s program, has noticed a similar decline. “There’s an interesting trend at the moment where it looks like computer science enrollment is dipping,” he said, pointing to increased A.I.-powered automation across the field. More than 60 percent of undergraduate computing programs saw a decline in employment for the 2025-2026 year compared to the year prior, according to a recent report from the Computing Research Association.
That decline comes as A.I. reshapes some of the professions most exposed to its advances. In fields like coding, early-career workers have already experienced a 13 percent relative decline in employment, according to an August research paper from Stanford.
A.I. leaders’ advice for students
Experts have offered a range of advice as the technology they helped develop begins to reshape the labor market. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, has advocated for an immersion in A.I. tools, while acclaimed researcher Geoffrey Hinton suggests prospective students focus on a well-rounded education that pairs mathematics and science with liberal arts.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s former chief A.I. scientist, advises young people to become adept at learning itself, as their job is “almost certainly going to change” over time. “My suggestion is to take courses on topics that are fundamental and have a long shelf life,” he told Observer via email, pointing to mathematics, physics and engineering as core areas of focus.
It’s not just students grappling with these shifts. Callison-Burch noted that professors, too, are trying to adapt and determine how best to integrate A.I. into their classrooms. One thing, he said, is certain: the technology will only become more pervasive. That makes it all the more important for young people to familiarize themselves with its tools.
Even so, he acknowledged that predicting how A.I. will reshape the labor market remains extraordinarily difficult, making it hard for students to bet confidently on any one path. “I don’t think there’s an easy way of picking something that’s going to be future-proof, when we can’t yet see that future,” he said.