Computer science enrollment falls as colleges rush AI literacy for all majors

Faith Maeba, a 21-year-old psychology major at Virginia Commonwealth University with no coding background, initially hesitated when her mother suggested she take artificial intelligence classes. But as she explored graduate psychology programs that examine human behavior in the workplace—increasingly disrupted by machine learning—she saw an edge in adding an AI minor. "It's giving me an edge and standing out," she said.

Maeba's shift reflects a broader reversal in college demand. While hiring for entry-level software developers has cooled as AI agents assume that work, colleges are experiencing a surge in students from non-technical majors seeking AI skills. Computer science enrollment fell more than 8% at four-year institutions this spring compared to spring 2025, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, yet at Northwestern University, Samir Khuller, the chair of computer science, reports that the department—which had doubled in size to handle surging demand—is now teaching far more students outside computer science. "Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward," Khuller said. The department is recruiting three additional computer science professors.

Across the country, universities are restructuring their curriculum to democratize AI education. Peter Stone, chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, recently developed an introductory AI essentials course for non-computer 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. Purdue University has introduced an AI graduation requirement, and Harvard is teaching how large language models work in freshman writing courses while exploring topics such as copyright and disinformation. Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops, and Northwestern is adding an AI major and streamlining prerequisites to make AI and machine learning classes accessible to non-majors. Northwestern's Bienen School of Music is also launching a certificate in music and artificial intelligence.

The scale of change is striking for a sector known for moving slowly. At VCU, course approval used to take eighteen months; Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs, said "now we're doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks." An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year. Community colleges are moving even faster. One Kansas City-area community college recently offered a non-credit "vibe-coding" class to teach non-technical students 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, which is also offering an AI certificate and planning occupationally tailored AI classes for fields such as human resources and medical careers.

Students are discovering AI's relevance across disciplines. At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist that will bring together musicians, artists, theater, and digital media majors alongside math and engineering students to learn the intersection of art and technology. Music students are discovering AI tools that can edit or generate drum tracks. "In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer," Guerrero said. At VCU, Althea Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year, is exploring AI not for career use but to help answer philosophical questions: "What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?" Meanwhile, Makenzie Stovall, a 20-year-old biology major and aspiring neurologist, is drawn to AI's 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?" However, researchers note a counterbalancing anxiety: that students relying on AI to write code or perform tasks may not grasp underlying concepts in their own fields. Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard's Graduate School of Education who studies AI's impact on higher education, acknowledged that "it's impossible to keep up with the technology, but that's true for every organization in the world right now."