new york
Mary Ackerman has visited over 30 college campuses with her children. One of them is currently at Stanford University and the other is still in high school. She specifically wanted them to earn a degree that would lead to a good job, but the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, parent said understanding the rapid advances in AI and its impact on the job market is also a big challenge.
“I’m always wrestling with the idea of ’what is value?'” Ackerman says.
Nationally, the deadline for most students to attend college is around May 1st, which is their college decision date. But this year, parents and students are trying to figure out what constitutes a “good return” for education in a changing labor market. Majors once considered golden tickets, like computer science, may no longer have the same value as AI reshapes the tech industry. But what benefits the majors could receive instead remains an open question.
“Right now, there’s more confusion than ever before,” said Brianna Angelucci, a parent and college advisor for the Access to College Experts network, a subscription-based group that provides college preparation services.
According to the College Board, average tuition and fees at out-of-state public four-year colleges increased 3.4% in the 2025-2026 academic year to a total of $31,880 per year, while private nonprofit colleges increased 4% to $45,000 per year, not adjusted for inflation.
At the same time, rapid advances in artificial intelligence are changing expectations for entry-level jobs and for new graduates when they land their first job. This makes it difficult for families to predict how reliably a degree will lead to stable employment.
“Back in the day, you could go to college and major in whatever you wanted…It was easy to find a job, but that’s not the case these days,” said Kate Hilgenberg, a New Yorker in her 50s who has one child in college and one in her senior year of high school, and will begin applying in the fall.
The question of which degree makes the most sense helped shape her thoughts about her children’s future careers.
“I’m really happy that kids are going into STEM fields because I feel like STEM fields are less likely to be taken over by AI,” Hilgenberg said. “Right now, I don’t want my child to go to school to become an illustrator because AI is becoming more prevalent.”
As a result, in part because of her concerns, Hilgenberg said she sets firm limits on the amount she can contribute to her children’s college costs, leaving them to decide whether it’s worth taking on debt.
According to the Education Data Initiative, average student loan debt at graduation has increased by 41% since 2007, after adjusting for inflation. College students face an average of $39,457 in loan debt upon graduation.
“You need to be smart about how much you owe on student loans, especially as repayment plans become less favorable for borrowers,” said Daniel A. Collier, a professor of adult and higher education at the University of Memphis.
While the long-term impact of AI remains unclear, Collier stressed that parents should keep in mind the lasting benefits of a degree, including increased lifetime earnings on average and continued employment during recessions. According to the College Board, students with a four-year degree earn about 60 percent more than high school graduates and are less likely to be unemployed.
But the returns can vary widely by major, and how AI plays into that mix will depend on how higher education meets workforce demands, the College Board said.
For many parents, the uncertainty of AI is impacting how they steer their children into certain careers and away from others.
“I don’t want to say it too much, but my recommendation is to find a major that focuses on skills that will help you make money,” said Lucy Hughes, a parent of two North Carolina high school students preparing for college.
Universities are already in a “highway robbery” situation, Hughes said, adding that concerns about how AI will affect the job market have made them reluctant to borrow money to pay for their children’s tuition and become more selective about what they study.
“If my students wanted to be a teacher, I would say, ‘No, we’re not paying for that,’ and I was a teacher,” she said.
Ackerman said alternatives such as two-year degrees, trade programs and the military have “more evidence of AI” and will be cheaper for many parents than traditional degrees.
Hughes added that attending community college is the norm in North Carolina communities and can lead students to a career faster and more securely than an expensive degree in an unknown field of AI.
“The advent of AI in the last few years has really disrupted the whole process for parents,” said Angelucci, the college advisor.
