Artificial intelligence (AI) has already been the biggest disruptor in the tech world, perhaps ever. There have already been concerns that it could replace many careers, but AI is now transforming college degrees, as schools have begun to create new AI-focused majors.
It could also make some degrees less relevant as skills rapidly evolve, shifting the focus from rote knowledge to critical thinking. It is also raising questions about the implications for prompt engineering, while the issue of ethical AI could become more critical than ever.
New AI Majors
Some schools are already seeing how AI automation could make certain careers less necessary, and other fields, including finance, marketing, data science, and even creative arts, are beginning to integrate AI tools into the curriculum.
The most significant change could come as universities and other higher education institutions launch more specialized programs in AI, machine learning, and data science. Even students who do not plan to enter those fields may need to understand AI’s potential, limitations, and ethical challenges.
“Just read the headlines. AI is already presenting challenges for college graduates. They are having difficulties finding employment,” explained technology industry analyst Susan Schreiner of C4 Trends.
“In certain professions, a degree is no longer the guaranteed ticket to a job,” Schreiner told ClearanceJobs. “While AI might be more important in certain professions than others, one doesn’t need a crystal ball to understand that newly minted graduates might need to consider augmenting their content learning with AI skills.”
Schools are also likely to be on board, not just because AI is the future.
“Higher education is a business anymore, and like any big business competing for market share, it has figured out that slapping ‘artificial intelligence’ onto a product’s branding sells more of it,” added Dr. Jim Purtilo, associate professor of computer science at the University of Maryland.
Purtilo further told ClearanceJobs that curricula are being refactored to include AI content, admissions brochures are being updated to ensure prospective students see the buzz words, and colleges are adding “AI” to their very names.
“The rush is on to stand up new bachelor’s degrees in artificial intelligence,” Purtilo continued. “What those degrees mean is a moving target, and I struggle not to use the word hype. Cynics will say AI is what lets us outsource thinking, which puts it squarely at odds with the goals of a classical liberal education intended to promote communication and critical thinking skills.”
Significant Changes – Are Students and Instructors Actually Ready?
The question remains: how valuable can AI be during this transformative period? There is no denying that AI is disrupting many sectors, but the technology is evolving so rapidly that AI coursework may struggle to keep pace.
The other problem is that some programs may employ AI without giving students the ability to use it beyond a chatbot or automation and research tool. That could make the coursework easier for some students, but it won’t prepare them for actual use of AI out in the “real world” post graduation.
“Unless there is serious tech baked into those new degree tracks – and mostly I don’t see that yet – these could be very unhappy graduates in a few years when companies seeking AI keep recruiting the computer scientists and software engineers who know what is going on under the hood,” warned Purtilo.
“Certainly, how we teach is dramatically impacted, since students have discovered AI too,” Purtilo added. “ChatGPT can relieve them from the mental calisthenics that once would have left them workforce-ready. Unless we update classroom practices, the most we could warrant is that ChatGPT is worthy of a degree, even if students who used it are not.”
AI and the Learning Pyramid
As Generative and Agentic AI transitions from pilot projects to real-world applications, it is already transforming business models. Such shifts are beginning to challenge long-held beliefs about how we learn, what we consider valuable in learning, and how we evaluate competence and merit, Schreiner suggested.
“Since Generative AI risks undermining the traditional ‘Learning Pyramid,’ which has long depicted education and skill development as a clear, hierarchical progression from rote learning to creative output, there is an urgent imperative to develop new educational models,” Schreiner told ClearanceJobs. “This is placing intense pressure on schools, universities, and corporate training programs.”
One serious concern is that students in school and many workers have already found that it is increasingly easy to skip the foundational building blocks at the bottom of the Learning Pyramid, such as memorization and deep domain expertise. Instead, they are going directly to high-level tasks, such as creating essays, artwork, code, and even business plans with AI.
In other words, they skipped what had been a fundamental task and the lessons that come with it.
“This structural inversion is not merely a pedagogical anomaly,” warned Schreiner. “This ‘top-down learning,’ where creation precedes comprehension, exposes learners to synthesized, generative outputs before they’ve formed foundational mental models or subject matter knowledge. While a new marketing hire can generate product taglines using AI branding tools, skipping lessons in copywriting or consumer psychology, the results still require validation with human intelligence and judgment.”
She further noted that, in the short term, instructors may ask: What does it mean to teach when machines can generate answers better and faster than most humans? While some institutions are banning Generative AI tools, others are embracing them and seeking to teach “AI literacy” or “prompt engineering.”
“The real challenge is existential: if students can perform high-level tasks without foundational skills, what is the role of education or pedagogy? Given that the need for Human Intelligence is expected to remain strong across many sectors, curricula may need to shift from content-delivery skills to skills coaching to work alongside Generative AI,” said Schreiner. “Assessments may move toward real-time evaluations, or there may be oral defenses to probe actual understanding. Curricula may become nonlinear, enabling modular or recursive learning paths rather than fixed sequences.”
What is certain is that AI will continue to evolve and change the college experience; whether that is for the better or worse remains to be seen. But change is coming, and in ways we might not have expected.
“New educational pathways might emerge that challenge more traditional models,” Schreiner explained. “Clearly, Generative AI and AI Agents will transform the future of work and disrupt how humans learn to work successfully and satisfyingly alongside machines.”
