Fewer US College Students Major in CS. More Choose Data Science, Engineering (yahoo.com) 26
"From 2008 to 2024, the number of four-year computer science degrees granted rose about fivefold..." reports the Washington Post. Then in 2025 CS suddenly dropped from the fourth-largest undergraduate major to sixth, they report (citing data from the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse, which compiles numbers from 97% of U.S. universities.
The 54,000-student drop was "the biggest one-year drop of any major discipline going back to at least 2020." But what major are they choosing instead? Sarah Karamarkovich, a research associate with the National Student Clearinghouse, pointed to an explanation from the data that we had overlooked. Enrollments in two interdisciplinary majors, data analytics and data science, topped a combined 35,000 in the fall of 2025. That was up from a few hundred when those disciplines were broken out into their own majors in 2020. Those relatively new categories reflect colleges' zeal to create specialized majors, including in AI, data science, robotics and cybersecurity. Some of those disciplines may be counted in the national enrollment data as computer science. Others are not.
The numbers suggest that some of the disappearing computer science majors didn't flee so much as they splintered into related disciplines.... The 8 percent decline in computer science majors last fall was nearly mirrored by a 7.3 percent increase in engineering majors, according to the National Student Clearinghouse data. Within engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering major enrollments increased by the largest absolute amounts — a jump of 11 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
The 54,000-student drop was "the biggest one-year drop of any major discipline going back to at least 2020." But what major are they choosing instead? Sarah Karamarkovich, a research associate with the National Student Clearinghouse, pointed to an explanation from the data that we had overlooked. Enrollments in two interdisciplinary majors, data analytics and data science, topped a combined 35,000 in the fall of 2025. That was up from a few hundred when those disciplines were broken out into their own majors in 2020. Those relatively new categories reflect colleges' zeal to create specialized majors, including in AI, data science, robotics and cybersecurity. Some of those disciplines may be counted in the national enrollment data as computer science. Others are not.
The numbers suggest that some of the disappearing computer science majors didn't flee so much as they splintered into related disciplines.... The 8 percent decline in computer science majors last fall was nearly mirrored by a 7.3 percent increase in engineering majors, according to the National Student Clearinghouse data. Within engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering major enrollments increased by the largest absolute amounts — a jump of 11 percent and 14 percent, respectively.
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Once the singularity arrives, nurses will be the first to go. No need for healthcare once the project becomes genocide. No need for "data scientists" either, but then no need for plebeians of any kind.
I'm tickled you think there will be any such thing as a "high-paying job". Who do you think will be "paying" once billionaires own everything? The question is whether billionaires get to survive the purge. That's what the industry cares about, not "the kids".
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Maybe stop daydreaming about some nebulous future where someone else is fixing the problems that you are complaining are affecting you today.
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> Once the singularity arrives, nurses will be the first to go.
Gen-X and the Millennials are going insist that they get their asses wiped by a real human and not a robot. Nursing is safe.
With all these colleges closing (Score:2)
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It looks like there are fewer students needing to choose.
That seems to be more of a modern myth than actual reality. Data shows that undergraduate college enrollment went up about 1 % this year (https://nscresearchcenter.org/final-fall-enrollment-trends/ ).
Artificial bloat since Web 1.0 days (Score:1)
It's always been like that. In my time, economic majors were the most popular majors.
That's because in your time so many jobs require a 4-year degree, any degree, to get hired into entry level management.
But yeah, CS has had an artificial bloat since Web 1.0 days.
The profession is maturing (Score:4, Insightful)
Once upon a time, there were doctors. When you were sick, you called one to your home. But over time, the profession grew and became more specialized. These days, a doctor (primary care physician) is a member of a shrinking class of general practitioners.
Once upon a time, there were programmers. Programmers told computers what to do. But as time has passed, they have specialized into related fields: back end, front end, data management, analytics, and yes, AI. The specialization will continue. (And no, AI won't wipe out the profession, any more than power tools have wiped out construction professions.)
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Of course AI will end programming as a profession It's only been a few years and it's most of the way there already. And robots will eliminate construction workers but that hasn't started yet.
Re:The profession is maturing (Score:4, Interesting)
Robots have been doing construction work for decades already. Here's one company doing it: https://www.kuka.com/en-us/ind... [kuka.com] Manufactured homes have been a thing since the 1950s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] And yet, despite all that automation and prefabrication, construction companies face an acute shortage of workers. https://www.agc.org/news/2025/... [agc.org]
No, automation is not eliminating construction work. And no, AI will not eliminate programming work.
\The profession is shedding bloat (Score:2)
Once upon a time, there were programmers. Programmers ...
who had a genuine interest and curiosity about programming computers. Then came the internet and the big money behind it and many "programmers" were studying CS merely because it appeared a good career path, not due to innate interest in the field.
AI is helping the field of computer science shed the bloat of those with no inherent interest. Who never wrote a line of code that was not required for a class or a job. Who never learned new tech that was not required for a class or a job.
Because internships and jobs are few (Score:5, Interesting)
Available internships - nearly zero.
Maybe that is related?
He shifted to engineering, where the opportunities are
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Well, data science isn't exactly new - big data was something that's been trying to be analyzed for well over a decade. AI hasn't really helped much in the area - it's helped digest it, but it hasn't been able to generate insights.
The only thing we've been able to do is generate a ton more data, and we're needing AI to crunch through it all, so a lot of the data science is getting the the information prepped for AI in a way useful for it.
But here, AI isn't replacing jobs, it's actually needed to manage the
Engineering is probably a good choice (Score:3)
Many will still be doing software, but with an actual engineering education to help them. But Data Science? I think that stuff may be within reach of AI eventually. It is mostly statistics and data conditioning, both things AI can do. Of course, really good data scientists will still be in demand, but the mid-range ones? They may be screwed.
needed skills (Score:2)
There was a time not so long ago when you could get a general-purpose CS degree and the resulting coding skills would lead to a decent tech job. As many people in the profession are now seeing however, AI can get most of that basic coding done quickly and cheaply. There's no sense in spending a lot of time learning something that the machines can do better now.
Now the valuable skills are about how to drive AI effectively. I'm seeing that some people burn through $10-20k of compute resource in a month if the
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Ok sure, learn how to prompt AIs effectively. But without some grounding in a particular field, all you know how to do is tell AIs to do a bunch of stuff that you don't really understand all that well. This is akin to saying you don't need to know much about music to conduct an orchestra. Just swing your conductor's wand in a rhythmic fashion and the orchestra will play to the beat you set. Easy, right? Except no orchestra actually works like that because in reality a conductor often has decades of experien
Re: needed skills (Score:2)
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The implication of your last sentence is that AI will become increasingly a non-sequitur for some professions after they lose the experts to compose the right prompts and correctly interpret the results. Companies won't see this immediately, but it will happen to them.
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>> without some grounding in a particular field
Agreed, but according to the article, people are getting that by learning "data analytics and data science", not generic CS.
Same with EE and ME degrees (Score:2)
The field is becoming saturated. I'm reading a one percent application to hire rate lately for EEs and MEs. That is, 1 job offer to 100 applications.
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The field is becoming saturated. I'm reading a one percent application to hire rate lately for EEs and MEs. That is, 1 job offer to 100 applications.
I suspect that may have something to do with what you want to do as an EE or ME. Power engineering isn't sexy like some areas but is hiring and few people want to work for the power company.
A Trade? (Score:2)
College is not a trade school. If some Colleges are transitioning to being trade schools, sure, why not. But don't confuse people by still calling it a college.
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