Computer science was once a 'golden ticket' — now it's seeing the biggest enrollment drop of any major in 6 years. What students are choosing instead

Now, there are signs that boom may be losing steam.

New data from the National Student Clearinghouse (2) shows undergraduate enrollment in computer science programs at four-year institutions dropped 8.1% — the steepest one-year decline of any major since at least 2020. Graduate enrollment fell even further, down 14%.

The shift hasn't gone unnoticed. The Atlantic (3) recently declared that, "The Computer-Science Bubble is Bursting," while Nobel Prize–winning economist Simon Johnson (4) said AI has "substantially wiped out" coding as a reliable source of opportunity.

So if the once-dominant major is losing momentum, where are students turning instead?

The value of coding skills is shifting

The issue isn't that coding skills no longer matter — it's how they're being used.

Investor Matt Shumer, who has spent years working in AI, said recent breakthroughs are fundamentally changing how work gets done.

"By late 2025, some of the best engineers in the world said they had handed over most of their coding work to AI," he wrote in an essay published on X (5).

The post, which racked up about 86 million views, wasn't meant to spark panic, Shumer later said on CNBC's Power Lunch (6). Instead, he said he was describing his own surprise at how AI can now handle many of the technical aspects of his job, a shift he believes professionals in fields like law, medicine and accounting may soon experience as well.

That anxiety may already be showing up in the job market. In recent years, new college graduates have had a harder time finding work, with their unemployment rate exceeding the overall U.S. rate for five straight years (7).

It's also starting to influence what students choose to study. At Princeton University (8), computer science became the most popular major between 2011 and 2017 and held that position through the Class of 2025. But more recent data suggests demand may be cooling: 74 students in the Class of 2028 declared a computer science B.S.E., down from 117 the year before and 150 the year prior.

"Part of this is we are adapting to a new world," Szymon Rusinkiewicz, chair of the department, told the Princeton Alumni Weekly (8). "We have definitely noticed that things have leveled off, that we weren't growing at that explosive pace anymore."

Students are rethinking the payoff

For many students, the appeal of computer science was simple: strong job prospects and high salaries. That calculation is starting to shift. Rusinkiewicz said it's less about jobs disappearing and more about how they're evolving.

"It's less a case of, 'AI is coming for your jobs,' but much more a case of AI is making people more efficient at their jobs," he said (8).

Companies are still offering high salaries but increasingly for roles that involve working alongside AI, not competing with it.

Anthropic recently listed a software engineering role offering up to $320,000 a year (9), focused on helping "understand new model capabilities and redefine what is possible" with large language models.

Students are taking note. Gavin O'Malley, a Houston-area college applicant, told the Washington Post (1) that he felt discouraged from pursuing computer science as only the top students at his high school were applying to the field and with hiring slowing at major tech firms, the payoff felt less certain.

Others are rethinking their motivations. Theo Urban, a senior majoring in AI at Carnegie Mellon University, told the news outlet that students today may be choosing the field less for job security and more out of genuine interest.

So what are the top majors now?

As interest in computer science cools, other technical fields are gaining ground. Enrollment in mechanical and electrical engineering has grown (1) by about 11% and 14%.