The ‘AI and Future of Work’ Series — How the University is preparing students for what is next

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, college graduates of the last three years are entering a challenging job market. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 5.7 percent in Q1 of 2026, compared with 4.23 percent for workers overall. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, in June 2019, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates was 4.3 percent and for workers overall, was 3.5 percent. In a recent Gallup Inc poll, 79 percent of Americans believe that artificial intelligence will reduce the number of jobs over the next 10 years.

A recent study by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab has found no evidence of “widespread” job displacement. The study looked at young workers ages 22 to 25 in AI-exposed occupations — jobs in which AI can perform most of the tasks like customer service and software development. Ultimately, its findings illuminated that there would have been a 19 percent drop in employment in late 2026 for AI-exposed jobs if the market kept pace with less AI-exposed occupations’ employment trends.

Questions about the relationship between AI, higher education and the job market have become increasingly relevant to students preparing to enter the workforce. But the effects of AI vary considerably across professions, making it difficult to draw conclusions about what the technology will mean for students pursuing different fields.

At the School of Law, professors are making an effort to incorporate AI into legal education while emphasizing that students still need to develop traditional skills such as legal reasoning, judgement and communication. Similarly, at U.Va. Health, AI is already being used to assist with clinical documentation, hospital operations and research, while the system also highlights the importance of human oversight, safety, privacy and ethics as it expands the technology’s use.

Rather than simply asking whether AI will eliminate professions, this series aims to answer the following questions:

• What parts of professional work are becoming automated?
• What kinds of human skills are becoming more important?
• How should students think about education and career paths in a rapidly changing world?
• What remains uniquely valuable about getting a higher education degree?

According to Gallup, concerns about the effects of AI are beginning to factor into some students’ educational decisions — 42 percent of bachelor’s degree students say that they have reconsidered their major because of AI. As students weigh how AI may affect different career paths, this series offers insight from both the professors and students themselves on what adaptation may look like for the future of higher education.

Editor's note: This page was designed and coded using generative artificial intelligence, both from OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. All writing, editing and reporting included is produced by The Cavalier Daily's staff.