“Students are rapidly enrolling in newly created AI programs and majors at schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California San Diego, and University of South Florida,” reports The College Fix.
At MIT, the number of students majoring in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making rose from 37 in 2022 to 328 in 2025.
Professor Antonio Torralba, head of MIT’s AI department, said that the major is not limited to teaching generative AI.
“The AI major is not only good for learning about generative AI. The major provides the foundations that many parts of AI are built on,” said Torralba. “Generative AI is one, but there are many other important areas in AI and decision-making. Our goal is not to teach them to be users of gen AI; our goal is to teach them the foundations needed to build the future of AI.”
At UC San Diego, over 150 first-year students have enrolled in the university’s new artificial intelligence major.
Around 3,000 students applied to the University of South Florida’s Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity this semester. It was set up last year to “bring together the disciplines of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and computing.” It has been awarded millions in federal research grants.
The State University of New York at Buffalo recently set up a Department of AI and Society, which offers “seven AI-focused bachelor’s degrees.”
Cato Institute researcher Stephen Rowe says “employer demand for AI skills has exploded.” He pointed to a recent study from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank finding that job postings requiring at least one AI skill have tripled in less than a decade. Job postings seeking generative AI engineers have multiplied, rising by 588 percent from about 1,600 in 2022 to over 11,000 in 2024. “AI-related programs have surged nationwide, with nearly 200 bachelor’s-level AI majors now offered” in this country, Rowe added.
Rowe says that studying AI is advantageous, because it now pervades most industries, from healthcare and technology to most business sectors. He says the safest path for students is to combine AI with a specific discipline, such as economics or biology. “That combination protects graduates even if the AI job market normalizes. I don’t see any oversupply challenges in the near future,” he adds.
