Even after adjusting for inflation, the total tuition cost for undergraduates in the US has jumped nearly 40 percent between 2002-03 and 2022-2023, rising from $19,770 to $27,673, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. At the country’s most elite universities, students are paying far more — with fees soaring past $80,000 and there are no signs of slowing down.

Some governments aren’t leaving it to chance. In 2021, Australia raised tuition for communications, humanities and society and culture degrees by 113 percent, a deliberate move to push students toward job-heavy fields like nursing, teaching and engineering.

The underlying message? Study something “useful”, or pay the price.

And then there’s AI — the great disruptor. With automation looming, some students aren’t just chasing jobs in tech; they’re running from jobs they fear might vanish. But is the AI rush fueled by genuine interest or just self-preservation?

Are students chasing innovation, or hedging against an uncertain job market? And where does that leave those caught between what they love and what pays?

STEM’s in, humanities’ out

For decades, humanities and social sciences held steady as academic mainstays. But these subjects are losing their luster. At the prestigious Harvard University, the percentage of students intending to major in the humanities plummeted from 27 percent in 2006 to just 7.1 percent in 2021. This trend reflects a broader national shift.

Meanwhile, STEM is in overdrive. In America, the number of students completing data science and analytics degrees surged by over 700 percent between 2012 and 2021, reflecting explosive growth in demand for data-driven expertise. Meanwhile, cybersecurity completions more than doubled during the same period, rising from 10,013 graduates in 2016 to 23,746 in 2021.

What’s driving this shift? Job security and salary are at the core. The median salary for tech graduates dwarfs that of humanities majors, and students are paying attention.

“I chose my field of study with job security primarily in mind, opting for software engineering due to its strong demand at the time,” recalls Jack Quinlan, an engineering and science undergraduate student at the University of Sydney in Australia. However, he says a passion for engineering had always been there: “I’d been coding since I was young and genuinely enjoyed the challenge and creativity it involved.”

In Australia, despite the government’s clear push toward “job-ready” fields, humanities enrollments did not collapse as expected — demand remained steady, with only 1.5 percent of students changing fields in response to the price shift, according to the University of Melbourne.

Passion vs. pragmatism

For some scholars, choosing a major is a matter of passion — a love for literature, history or the arts that outweighs any financial concern. “I chose my degree based on my personal interests and passion,” says Emerson D’Sylva, a sciences major at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

“While other factors certainly have some influence on my choices, the overriding determiner has been whether the subject matter is something I want to understand more deeply,” she adds. But for many, the choice is increasingly dictated by pragmatism, student-loan debt and job security. The numbers make it clear: students are voting with their tuition dollars, and many students are turning their backs on the traditional liberal arts.

Universities say the paycheck gap has something to do with it. New grads in computer and information sciences start at an average of $86,964, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). Meanwhile, humanities grads? They’re looking at $50,681.

Parental and societal pressure further skews the playing field. “Cultural aspects still have a strong effect on how students make their choice. Financial pressure and/or family values steer students towards a safer or more traditional choice,” says Maria Lindblad, Acting Head of International Marketing and Recruitment at Lund University in Sweden.

In the US, 46 percent of students report feeling family influence when choosing a major, according to a 2021 survey by Grand Canyon University – suggesting that external factors, including financial ones, play a significant role in these decisions.

The message is clear: passion matters, but financial realities often win out. “A university education is a significant investment of time and money for our students and their families,” notes Sheryl Tucker, Provost and Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the US' Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

She also observes: “While the choice of major will vary with individuals, students and families want to see a return on that investment, and will make their choices accordingly.”

The result? A generation of students making calculated career choices, not just following their interests. He adds: “This means, for example, reorienting research priorities, forging and growing links across the university and involving students in designing the curriculum, often working in and with the community.”

The ‘AI effect’

For many students in 2025, AI is an especially rational choice.

“I’ve had a passion for technology ever since I was a child, and I’ve always been intrigued by how it shapes our world,” says Mehrdad Naderi, a BSc computer science student at the University of London. “As soon as I discovered AI and machine learning — topics everyone seems to be talking about these days — my interest only grew stronger.”

He acknowledges that while the job market for tech is strong, his decision wasn’t about demand — it was about a genuine fascination with technology and innovation.

Universities are scrambling to keep up. Computer science, AI and data-driven fields are seeing huge spikes in student demand, pushing universities to expand their offerings.

The University of Texas at San Antonio is making a big bet on the future. Its newly announced College of AI, Cyber and Computing, set to launch in autumn 2025, will merge artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science and computing into one program.

In China, Peking University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University are also expanding undergraduate enrollment to supercharge AI talent.

The boom makes sense. AI and automation are reshaping career choices. Universities and their students see the headlines: AI is replacing coders, automating finance jobs, making even white-collar work dispensable. The logical response seem to be get ahead of the machine — or at least learn to build it.

According to QS’ Generative AI report, which surveyed more than 1,600 students, after the emergence of AI, the number one subject that respondents plan to study is computer science & information systems. The numbers tell the story. AI specialists pull in an average of $136,869 a year, according to PayScale. Meanwhile, liberal arts grads sit at $55,000, and even entry-level engineers start stronger, averaging $78,329, per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some degrees just pay more.

But here’s the paradox: how many students actually want to work in AI? Universities say they are filling AI programmes to capacity, but is this out of genuine interest or sheer survival instinct?

Some critics say the risk of an oversaturated tech job market is real. History offers a warning. The late ‘90s dot-com frenzy pulled in a wave of new tech grads, all chasing stock market highs and startup gold.

But when the bubble burst in the early 2000s, reality hit hard. Jobs vanished overnight, leaving fresh computer science grads stranded in an industry that had suddenly slammed on the brakes. Enrollment in tech programs soared during the boom — then crashed just as fast when the layoffs came.

For now, the momentum towards AI appears to be unstoppable. The real question is whether that bet will pay off long-term.

Degrees of the future

Right now, the numbers tell a clear story: STEM is booming, and the traditional liberal arts are shrinking. But is the shift toward pragmatic, high-earning degrees sustainable? Or are we setting up a generation of students for burnout, disillusionment and a creative vacuum in industries that rely on critical thinking?

The risks of an overly pragmatic approach are becoming apparent. Students who chase high-paying fields without genuine interest often struggle with job dissatisfaction and burnout — a trend already visible in tech, where long hours and high stress contribute to frequent job-hopping.

In China’s tech sector, the infamous “996” work culture (9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) has drawn widespread criticism for its toll on workers’ well-being.

Meanwhile, the decline of the humanities isn’t just bad for universities’ literature departments; industries from journalism to law to policy-making depend on the analytical and communication skills that humanities graduates bring. Even tech needs them — who else will tackle the ethical dilemmas of AI, misinformation, or the social impact of automation?

Yet, there are signs of a counter-shift. Universities say that digital humanities, ethics in AI and interdisciplinary programmes combining data science with social sciences are gaining traction.

Universities are responding. Stanford’s Ethics, Society and Technology (EST) Hub embeds ethics into STEM education, making sure innovation doesn’t outrun accountability. Meanwhile, Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence is bringing together philosophers, computer scientists and social scientists to tackle the tough questions that AI raises.

“The disruptive technological developments in the AI sector have markedly influenced students’ choices,” confirms Gerhard Müller, Senior Vice-President for Academic and Student Affairs at the Technical University of Munich.

“Many students are now gravitating towards disciplines that offer the potential to make meaningful contributions to society and the environment, often via the development of new technologies.”

Meanwhile, environmental science and green tech are becoming high-demand fields, appealing to students who want careers with both impact and stability. The International Labour Organization projects that transitioning to a greener economy could create 24 million new jobs worldwide by 2030, for example.

This suggests that some students aren’t just chasing STEM for the paycheck; they’re future-proofing their careers while making room for what actually interests them.