AI Is Reshaping Entry-Level Coding Jobs, and Colleges Are Racing to Keep Up

Nearly one in ten recent computer science and computer engineering graduates is unemployed. An Associated Press analysis puts the jobless rate at 7.1% for the field — and philosophy, art history and ethnic studies majors now all have higher employment rates than computer science grads.

The reversal is stark for a discipline that, during the recent coding boom, saw students receive job offers without even applying. Software development postings on Indeed peaked in early 2022 as pandemic-era digitization drove hiring. Then the market turned. Microsoft, Meta and Google now lean on AI for a larger share of code writing, and employers like Amazon are shedding workers as AI spending accelerates. A Federal Reserve analysis of the Indeed data confirms far fewer software development jobs are being posted.

The damage is measurable. For workers in their early 20s in so-called "AI-exposed" occupations such as software development, employment sits 19% below where it would be if it had kept pace with less-exposed fields, according to the Stanford Digital Economy Lab. The U.S. Census Bureau compared the decline to finishing college during a large recession.

A lucky break in an unlucky market

Jack Zemke, 23, a Tulane University computer science student, sent out hundreds of applications that mostly disappeared into the void — ignored. Days before graduation, he was weighing a move back in with his parents.

His break came from a group project: an AI-powered search tool he touted at an engineering conference. An employee of a civil engineering firm approached him. "We're not like the most on top of trends, but we know that AI is becoming a big thing," Zemke recalled the man saying. "We need somebody to be essentially an evangelist."

Zemke's reply: "I'm your man." He spent a year at the engineering firm and was hired this summer at an AI tech startup.

"These jobs are expecting you to be able to jump in and kind of operate on the frontier," Zemke said. "There's so much churn. People are getting laid off. People are leaving. It really feels like a total frenzy right now."

His case illustrates a broader shift. Employers hiring computer science graduates are increasingly not tech giants but smaller businesses looking for help figuring out what to do with AI.

Industry wants AI overseers, not junior coders

What the market now demands are workers who can oversee AI tools and not blindly accept their outputs — skills more common in seasoned workers, said Tracy Camp, executive director and CEO of the Computing Research Association. The effect on young-worker hiring worries the association enough that it has urged industry leaders to invest in entry-level talent.

"If they don't change how hiring is currently happening, they're not going to have mid-level career people in a few years," Camp said.

Students have noticed. After a decade in which the number of recent computer science and computer engineering graduates tripled, to about 362,000 in 2024, enrollment began dropping last year. By this spring, computer and information science enrollment had fallen 8.4% at four-year institutions, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

International students hit hardest

The shift disadvantages international students, who enrolled in computer science programs in high numbers. Many smaller companies now hiring lack HR departments with experience handling H-1B work visas, said Samir Khuller, chair of Northwestern University's computer science department. The Trump administration is seeking to raise the fee for those visas to over $100,000.

Collins Kibet, a Kenyan graduate of Southern New Hampshire University, sent out hundreds of applications and landed a handful of interviews — mostly with AI bots. In the rare interview with a person, the tone shifts when employers learn they would need to sponsor his visa.

"Everybody just keeps quiet," said Kibet, who started his own software company after failing to find a job.

Colleges retool

Nicholas Mattei, an associate computer science professor at Tulane, says the demands companies now make of graduates strain belief.

"All the companies are coming back to us and saying, 'Oh, well you need to train these people even better, and they need to be able to jump into a middle management role as opposed to an introductory or junior developer role,'" he said. "And it's kind of crazy."

Georgia Tech is experimenting. Professors researched what AT&T wanted and trained students for a month before their internships began. The school plans to expand the effort into a program called "Bootcamp to Industry," said Fisayo Omojokun, associate dean for undergraduate education in Georgia Tech's College of Computing. Recruiters for the college's job fairs are also courting a wider range of industries.

"Earlier this year, we got a call from a forestry company of all things," Omojokun said. "They're like, 'Hey, we are in forestry, and we know that AI can help in what we do in different ways.'"

Schools say most graduates ultimately land jobs. But the pipeline that tripled over a decade is now shrinking, and the employers doing the hiring are no longer the ones students signed up to join. If the Computing Research Association's warning holds, the industry's reluctance to hire juniors today may leave it short of mid-level talent within a few years.