At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science

TECH

At colleges, the AI boom means everyone wants to dabble in computer science

2026-08-03 12:14 Last Updated At：17:20

With no background in coding, Faith Maeba, a psychology major, was reluctant when her mother first suggested she enroll in classes on artificial intelligence.

But the senior at Virginia Commonwealth University began to see it differently as she looked into graduate psychology programs that explore human behavior in the workplace, which is quickly being upended by machine learning. Maeba, 21, is now pursuing a minor in AI.

“It’s giving me an edge and standing out,” she said.

Hiring has cooled for entry-level software developers — work increasingly done by AI agents — and college enrollment in computer and information science programs has been declining. Yet at campuses across the country, many professors are finding themselves busier than ever teaching students from a range of majors about artificial intelligence.

Colleges are responding to changes in student demand, but they also recognize that new graduates — regardless of their field — are facing questions about their AI skills from potential employers.

“We have to democratize it,” said Peter Stone, the chair of computer science at the University of Texas at Austin, who recently developed an introductory course on AI essentials for noncomputer 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.

Schools like VCU are standing up AI minors targeting students outside computer science. There’s a new AI graduation requirement at Purdue University. In freshman writing classes, Harvard University is teaching students how large language models work, plus exploring AI topics such as copyright and disinformation. And Ohio State University has an AI fluency requirement that includes hands-on workshops. Meanwhile, AI-focused undergraduate and even graduate degrees are proliferating.

At Northwestern University, noncomputer science majors had interest in taking classes in the department even before ChatGPT launched in 2022, but sometimes there wasn’t enough room, said Samir Khuller, the chair for computer science. That’s because computer science, then seen as a golden ticket to a high-paying job, was exploding in popularity.

But recently, the number of incoming computer science majors has started to shrink. Now Northwestern’s computer science staff, which had doubled in size to meet the demand, is teaching more students from other majors. The school, which already has a popular AI minor, is adding an AI major. It's also streamlining prerequisites to make it easier for nonmajors to take an AI or machine learning class.

“Overall, classes are going to be a lot more accessible moving forward,” Khuller said. The department is so busy, he's trying to hire three more computer science professors.

Among other changes across the university, Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music is offering a certificate in music and artificial intelligence.

Nationwide, enrollment in computer and information sciences continued falling this spring, down more than 8% 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.

Interest in attaining at least a bare-bones understanding in computer science — and particularly AI-enhanced coding — has exploded across different majors. Music students, for instance, are discovering tools that can easily do tasks such as editing or generating drum tracks.

At Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, assistant music professor Benjamin Guerrero is co-teaching a class next year with a computer scientist. Musicians, artists, theater and digital media majors will learn alongside math, computer science and electrical engineering students. The goal, he said, is to create people who can work at the intersection of art and technology.

“In my mind, AI is no more disruptive than the record player, the radio, the metronome, the synthesizer or the computer,” said Guerrero, who has helped organizations including the National Association for Music Education develop plans to incorporate AI.

Even before this latest surge in interest, STEM majors — like physicists and biologists — often took computer science classes to learn how to code for data-heavy research. But the learning curve was steep until new AI tools came along, said Murtaza Ali, a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington whose research focuses on computer science education.

Yet, he said, AI also is stirring anxiety. The concern, he said, is that even if the AI is just being used to write code, it’s going to encroach so much that eventually some college graduates won’t understand the basic concepts in their field.

“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.”

Despite those concerns, the pace of change is remarkable for a sector infamous for moving slowly, said Paul LeBlanc, a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, who studies AI’s impact on higher education.

“It’s impossible to keep up with the technology, but that’s true for every organization in the world right now,” said LeBlanc, formerly president of Southern New Hampshire University, a prominent player in online degrees.

Community colleges that want to offer non-credit classes are able to move especially fast, because the approval process is less cumbersome. One in suburban Kansas City recently offered a non-credit “vibe-coding” class to teach nontechies 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. The Kansas City-area college also offers an AI certificate and is making plans to tailor AI classes to specific occupations, such as human resources and medical careers.

At VCU, it used to take a year and a half to design a course and get it approved for students to take, said Andrew Arroyo, senior vice provost of academic affairs.

“Now we’re doing things really in a matter of months and in some cases weeks,” Arroyo said. An online graduate certificate program in applied AI is being added this year, he said.

More than simply creating programs, professors must try to prepare students for widely differing goals for using AI in their careers. In courses for VCU’s AI minor, Althea Pappas said she’s exploring AI not to use in her career, but to help her answer philosophical questions.

“What happens when we create actual life, or how do we even make that distinction?” asked Pappas, a music composition major entering her sophomore year.

Meanwhile, what fascinates aspiring neurologist Makenzie Stovall is the idea that AI is trying to emulate the brain — an organ whose inner workings continue to leave researchers dumbfounded.

“If I am going to try to make people’s brain the best it can be, well, then,” the 20-year-old VCU biology major asked, “why not study AI?”

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Lula is declared winner of Brazil's election as Bolsonaro rejects results

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a vocal critic of U.S. President Donald Trump, was reelected Sunday in a result that provides relief to critics of widening U.S. influence in Latin America.

With 100% of the vote counted, Brazil’s electoral court announced that the soon to be 81-year-old Lula had a lead of nearly 4.4 million votes over opponent Flávio Bolsonaro, giving him 51.8% of the total vote. Bolsonaro quickly refused to concede defeat and asked for the election results to be annulled after an evening of chaos at some polling places that followed a last-minute decision to extend voting by two hours.

Lula's triumph bucks a regional trend of victories for right-of-center presidential candidates allied with Trump. It also means Latin America’s largest economy, with a GDP of $2.6 trillion per year, will likely continue defying Trump’s demands, despite the pressure of increased tariffs.

A video published by Lula’s campaign shows the veteran leader celebrating with First Lady Rosângela da Silva and allies after his runoff victory was confirmed by Brazil’s electoral court. Wearing star-shaped red glasses, he kissed his wife. Hundreds of his supporters began gathering on Sao Paulo’s main artery to celebrate the victory.

In Rio de Janeiro, cars beeped their horns and a woman dressed in red — the color of Lula supporters — shouted “You lost! Cry harder!” to four men in yellow and green sipping beers, Bolsonaro's signature colors. A huge roar echoed in the street as the result was confirmed.

Rodrigo Valentim, a 51-year-old businessman and supporter of Bolsonaro, said that another Lula government would harm the economy. He pointed to financial markets’ positive reaction to the result of the first round, when Bolsonaro bested Lula.

“I don’t understand how people can vote for Lula,” he said. “The country is collapsing.”

Lula is set to begin his fourth non-consecutive term as president on Jan. 5, 2027.

The electoral court's announcement ended an evening of confusion at polling places after Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Cristiano Zanin ruled three minutes before the scheduled end of voting to keep polls open for two more hours, following requests by both candidates. Lula’s request came after issues with buses that provide transportation to polls in Sao Paulo and Salvador, two cities that tend to favor the incumbent. Bolsonaro’s request was due to heavy rains in Brazil’s south, where he is favored.

The decision delayed tallying the votes by two hours. It was unclear how many polling stations stayed open after the scheduled closing time. Polling stations in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro closed shortly after the original 5 p.m. deadline, reporters for The Associated Press observed.

Bolsonaro, whose father is serving a 27-year prison sentence for attempting a coup after he lost the 2022 presidential election to Lula, pointed out that Zanin is Lula’s former lawyer and criticized him for “changing the rules of the game in the middle of the game.”

“It's impossible to recognize the results of the election in the context of these things that happened,” he said.

Bolsonaro bested Lula by more than 2.2 million votes in the first round of the election earlier this month. Sunday night's apparent victory by Lula marked the first time since Brazil’s military dictatorship ended in 1985 that the second-highest vote-getter in the first-round elections won the presidency.

Lula faced a tough reelection battle because of concerns about the cost of living and security. Bolsonaro made a tough-on-crime approach the cornerstone of his campaign and pledged to bring down food costs while Lula, trying to lure undecided voters, has invested in costly incentives.

Both have been hit by corruption suspicions involving family members and allies, with Bolsonaro implicated in a sprawling scandal rocking Brazil. Lula previously spent more than a year in prison on corruption convictions that were eventually annulled.

This will likely be the last victory of the veteran leader’s political career. Lula began his political career in the 1970s as a union leader. He then helped found the Workers’ Party, which he represented as a presidential candidate three times until he finally won it in 2002. He was reelected four years later and was succeeded by one of his cabinet ministers, Dilma Rousseff, in 2010. She was reelected in 2014.

Rousseff was impeached for accounting maneuvering in 2016 amid a sprawling corruption probe, which also ensnared Lula. He tried to run for president again in 2018 but was jailed in March after being convicted.

Lula was released from prison after 580 days and saw Brazil’s Supreme Court annul his sentence after police found messages that showed the judge who convicted him was biased. He quickly became one of former President Jair Bolsonaro’s biggest critics and narrowly beat him in 2022.

Since he lost the first round, Lula reorganized his campaign, appealed to young voters, put millions of Brazilians on the streets to defend democratic values and his legacy, raised fears of another Bolsonaro administration and boosted several government initiatives.

He joins Trump and Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega — all aged 80 — as one of the oldest presidents in the Americas.

Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. Brigida reported from Brasilia.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america