Most likely applies to all schools, but the data is for UCs.
Quick summary: CS enrollment declined at all UC campuses except UCSD, which bucked the trend by adding an AI major.
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Hi everyone — I’m an editor with the San Francisco Chronicle’s California College Guide.
For the first time since the dot-com bust in the early 2000s, undergraduate computer science enrollment across the University of California system has declined.
After more than a decade of rapid growth, the numbers dipped this year — even as CS remains one of the most popular (and competitive) majors across multiple UC campuses.
(Why are we posting here? The Chronicle has partnered with College Confidential to bring the information from our California College Guide to this platform. We’re looking to hear more about how people are searching for colleges in California, and what kinds of information and tools are the most important to you. And we’re hoping we can help answer some questions on topics ranging from “impacted majors” to the cost of college.)
UC San Diego is the sole campus bucking the trend, and it happens to be the only one that recently launched a standalone artificial intelligence major.
Across the UC system, 12,652 students are majoring in computer science this year — about the same as in 2021. That’s a 6% drop from last year, on top of a 3% drop in 2024. Still, that’s almost twice as many students enrolled in computer science than a decade ago.
Admissions officers and faculty are discussing whether:
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Tech layoffs and uncertainty are influencing student choices
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AI is reshaping interest in traditional CS programs
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Parents are steering students toward other engineering fields
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Or whether this is just a temporary leveling-off after explosive growth
This comes after a Chronicle analysis found that students who graduate with a computer science bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley have the highest median earnings of those who pursued any field of study across the UC and CSU systems.
We are curious what students and families are seeing this cycle:
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Are more pivoting to AI, data science, or other engineering majors?
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Do you think this affects competitiveness for 2026 applicants?
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Did you encourage your student to look at majors other than computer science?
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The fields college students pursue often seems to be a lagging indicator of the job market. Those of us on the forum for a while can remember when kids were posting about going into consulting or Wall Street (they hadn’t decided on which yet), or a wave when they were pre-law, or a wave when they wanted to know which college would best prepare them for med school. All when the golden time for entering those fields as a new college grad was already passing, let alone going to be around four years in the future.
In the past year or two I’ve heard from friends that their kids who were graduating with CS degrees from UCLA and Cal were having difficulty finding their first post-college job and had to move back home while still searching. I think you might find an interesting angle by looking for kids (or their parents) that completed a CS degree within the past 1-3 years.
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It’s part of a larger pattern throughout the United States. National CS major enrollment changes from 2024 to 2025 are below for Computer and Information Sciences and Support Services (CIP code 11), sorted by state.
Overall Total – 8% Decline (48/51 states decline)
Highest Decline States
1 . Idaho – 26% Decline
2. Arkansas – 22% Decline
3. Oregon – 21% Decline
4. Colorado – 19% Decline
5. Vermont – 17% Decline
6. Michigan – 15% Decline
Stanford’s stats for major enrollment (not completed degrees) show CS enrollment peaked in Aut 2023. The major enrollment changes from Aut 2023 to Aut 2025 are summarized below. Note that it’s not tech or STEM as a whole that shows a decline. Engineering as a whole had a large increase. Data Science enrollment doubled. National stats show a similar type of pattern. I expect with AI fears and related pressure from parents/colleagues/media, some students are shifting enrollment to what they perceive as majors that have superior future employment prospects.
Stanford Major Enrollment Changes From 2023 → 2025
Data Science: +95% (increase)
(Engineering) Design: +71%
Electrical Engineering: +39%
History: +38%
Bioengineering: +30%
Mathematics: +23%
…
Symbolic Systems: -19% (decrease)
Computer Science: -22%
…
Sociology: -43%
English: -56%
Foreign Languages: -60%
Philosophy: -60%
… Studies -61%
Despite the decline, there is only a marginal impact on class sizes for introductory CS classes. Now it is a bit easier for non-majors to enroll in these classes and the sizes can vary from several hundreds to more than a thousand in some cases.
At most colleges there is a significant decline in class size, even though intro classes are still quite large. Example totals for CS 106A at Stanford are below. Total is Autumn + Winter + Spring + Summer quarters. There is ~15% decrease in enrollment since 2023-24 year, roughly consistent with the degree of decrease in major enrollment.
CS 106A Enrollment
2022-23: 549 + 463 + 291 + 185 = 1488 students
2023-24: 540 + 516 + 281 + 172 = 1509 students
2024-25: 501 + 479 + 198 + 122 = 1300 students
2025-26: 487 + 487 + TBD + TBD ~= 1290 students (extrapolated)
Along the same lines, CS is still the most enrolled major by a huge margin, even though there has been a notable decline in enrollment since 2023 peak. Specific numbers are below.
Most Enrolled Majors: 2025
1 . Computer Science: 639
2. Economics: 231
3. Biology: 175
3. Human Biology: 175
5. Symbolic Systems: 172
6. Electrical Engineering: 156
7. Mathematics: 154
8. Management Sciences & Engineering: 134
As a comparison, most enrollment majors 20 years ago is below
Most Enrolled Majors: 2005
1 . Human Biology: 300
2. Biology: 284
3. Psychology: 240
4. Economics: 225
5. Political Science: 183
6. International Relations: 157
7. English: 149
8. Computer Science: 145
Wow. Those are fairly big class sizes for a private school and comparable to some of the UCs. Must say the closest UC to Stanford can approach this yearly total in a single semester.
Note that the video indicates that UCSC represents the exception.
The reporter got it wrong. I believe it is UCSD which has added an AI major. This article should confirm, but I am not sure if there is a paywall.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/college-admissions/article/uc-major-computer-science-ai-21284464.php
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People should probably choosy about Econ programs at this point too, given what AI has done to the job market for graduate students in this field.