With computer science enrollments slipping even as entry-level software hiring cools, campuses across the United States report surging demand for artificial intelligence courses from students in many majors — and departments are rapidly adding classes, minors and requirements to meet it.
AI across majors
Many students without coding backgrounds are now seeking AI literacy. Faith Maeba, a 21-year-old psychology major at Virginia Commonwealth University, said she was reluctant when her mother first suggested AI classes but decided to pursue a minor after researching graduate psychology programs that study workplace behaviour “which is quickly being upended by machine learning.” “It’s giving me an edge and standing out,” she said.
Colleges say graduates in all fields face questions from employers about their AI skills. Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for non-computer science majors and called for broader access: “We have to democratise it.” He added, “In the same way that everybody needs some degree of math, reading and writing, I think everybody needs a degree of AI literacy.”
Programs, requirements and new degrees
Campuses are responding with new offerings. Virginia Commonwealth University is standing up AI minors aimed at non-computer science students. Purdue University has introduced an AI graduation requirement. Harvard University is teaching incoming students in freshman writing classes how large language models work and exploring topics such as copyright and disinformation. Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and graduate degrees are proliferating.
Enrollment patterns are shifting. Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than eight percent 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.
Faculty pivot and curriculum changes
Computer science departments that once focused primarily on majors are teaching larger numbers of non-majors. At Northwestern University, Samir Khuller, chair of computer science, said non-computer science interest predated ChatGPT but the department had earlier doubled its staff to meet demand. With incoming computer science majors now shrinking, Khuller said the department is teaching more students from other fields, is adding an AI major, streamlining prerequisites for non-majors, and trying to hire three more computer science professors. “Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward,” he said. Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music is also offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence.
Across disciplines, students are finding practical AI tools useful: music students are using software to edit or generate drum tracks, and Eastern Mennonite University assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero will co-teach a class that mixes musicians, artists, theatre and digital media majors with math, computer science and electrical engineering students. Guerrero framed AI as another disruptive technology in music and arts: “In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer.”
Speed of change and concerns
Educators say the pace of curricular change has been unusually rapid for higher education. Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, noted institutions are scrambling to keep up with technology. Community colleges, with lighter approval processes, are moving especially fast: one in suburban Kansas City offered a non-credit “vibe-coding” class to teach non-techies to create working software. Grant Carlson, programme coordinator for workforce development and continuing education at Johnson County Community College, said AI “shrinks that distance between a complete novice and an expert.” The college also offers an AI certificate and plans to tailor classes to occupations such as human resources and medical careers.
At VCU, senior vice provost Andrew Arroyo said course design and approval that used to take a year and a half is now happening in months or even weeks; the university is adding an online graduate certificate in applied AI this year. But some scholars warn of risks: Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington who studies computer science education, said AI tools can lower the learning curve but may also let students outsource understanding. “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.”
Students arrive with different aims. In VCU’s AI minor, music composition major Althea Pappas said she studies AI to explore philosophical questions such as “What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?” Biology major Makenzie Stovall, who aspires to be a neurologist, said she is drawn to AI by its attempt to emulate the brain: “If I am going to try to make people’s brain the best it can be, well, then, why not study AI?”
