{"id":46854,"date":"2026-08-15T15:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T10:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46854"},"modified":"2026-08-15T15:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T10:28:26","slug":"theres-no-point-ai-forces-college-students-to-rethink-their-major","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=46854","title":{"rendered":"&quot;There&#039;s no point&quot;: AI forces college students to rethink their major"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/ejesvl_3Zef8KPjzZPf97TfgjR4=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/03\/1785784995638.jpeg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Students \u2014 and their parents \u2014 are searching for future-proof college majors for an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/technology\/automation-and-ai\" target=\"_blank\">AI<\/a>-powered world. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Why it matters: <\/strong>AI is changing the skills employers expect from entry-level workers, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/04\/college-ai-use-kogod-american-university\" target=\"_blank\">colleges are rethinking<\/a> how to prepare students for the transition.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>The big picture: <\/strong>Rumors of the death of jobs might be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/06\/24\/chamath-palihapitiya-future-of-work-ai\" target=\"_blank\">greatly exaggerated<\/a>, but college students and graduates are still worried about what comes next.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>College instructors and administrators need to spend more time thinking about what students are going to do with their degrees and how what they&#8217;ve learned applies to their career, Casey Evans, interim dean at American University&#8217;s Kogod School of Business, tells Axios.<\/li>\n<li>Parents expect it too. &#8220;How are you connected to employers? What&#8217;s the rate of internships?&#8221; Evans says families regularly ask. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>By the numbers: <\/strong>Nearly seven in 10 (69%) college students<strong> <\/strong>worry AI will make it harder to find a job, per a recent survey of 2,000 U.S. higher education students  by Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fewer than half (45%) say they feel optimistic about the job market after graduation, <\/li>\n<li>One in five (22%) students say they&#8217;ve changed their major or concentration because of concerns about the job market.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Zoom out: <\/strong>Today&#8217;s college majors aren&#8217;t necessarily built for the future labor market.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Transferable skills like critical thinking, AI literacy, leadership and collaboration will be the skills employers are looking for, according to Leah Belsky, VP of education for OpenAI. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>At American University, <\/strong>for instance<strong>,<\/strong> students learn<strong> <\/strong>how to use AI critically \u2014 including how to identify errors, consider ethical questions and decide when the technology adds value, Evans tells Axios.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The curriculum pairs AI skills with communication, teamwork, presentation and critical-thinking requirements \u2014 skills Evans says employers continue to seek.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Case in point:<\/strong> Burton Baecker, a rising sophomore at the University of California, Davis started as an accounting major, but soon realized AI could do much of his classwork.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He added finance onto his major to broaden his job prospects and financial literacy.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;There&#8217;s no point in going into that field anymore if AI can do it all for you,&#8221; he said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The other side: <\/strong>Sammy White, a rising junior at New York University, is a dramatic writing major who&#8217;s constantly thinking about how AI&#8217;s impact on the arts \u2014 even if he avoids using AI for creative tasks.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;I&#8217;m not too like worried about it just completely taking over,&#8221; he said, but noted that AI&#8217;s growth is &#8220;a looming thing.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>White sees AI affecting many majors and future careers, so he decided to pursue something he loves.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;If it&#8217;s just this big thing that&#8217;s going to impact everything, and if the job market is already gonna be kind of a little rough or whatever, I might as well just try to pursue what I really love doing,&#8221; he said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Reality check:<\/strong> Accounting firms<strong> <\/strong>are still heavily recruiting students, with demand currently outpacing supply, Evans tells Axios. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>But employers &#8220;are expecting more from students coming out of college than they have ever before \u2014 in accounting and elsewhere.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>What to watch: <\/strong>As<strong> <\/strong>AI tools take on more tasks, it&#8217;s becoming harder to predict which jobs will change most.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>New graduates are now expected to manage projects and AI agents, conduct deeper research, present their findings and substantively discuss and defend their work, Evans says.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The bottom line: <\/strong>AI may make some tasks easier, but employers are raising the bar for what entry-level workers can do. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Go deeper: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2026\/08\/15\/college-bachelors-degree-shift-ai-america\" target=\"_blank\">College loses its monopoly on the American Dream<\/a><\/p>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Students \u2014 and their parents \u2014 are searching for future-proof college majors for an AI-powered world. Why it matters: AI is changing the skills employers expect from entry-level workers, while colleges are rethinking how to prepare students for the transition. The big picture: Rumors of the death of jobs might be greatly exaggerated, but college&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/images.axios.com\/ejesvl_3Zef8KPjzZPf97TfgjR4=\/0x0:1920x1080\/1366x768\/2026\/08\/03\/1785784995638.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-political-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}