Secondary Student Interest Shifts from Computer Science & AI Toward Engineering, Nova Learning Data Shows
The share of students naming Computer Science and AI as their primary academic interest fell from 42.3% in 2025 to
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Among the students surveyed by Nova Learning, Engineering saw the largest increase in 2026, rising 11.1 percentage points, driven by interest in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The shift comes amid uncertainty around software-industry employment and the changing role of AI in software development. Technology companies have announced layoffs, while advances in AI-assisted coding have prompted discussion about how entry-level software work is changing.
The pattern extends beyond Nova Learning. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s Clearinghouse Enrollment Insights: Final Fall Enrollment Trends, published January 15, 2026, found that enrollment in Computer and Information Science programs declined across all award and institution types in fall 2025. In the Research Center’s breakdown, undergraduate enrollment at four-year institutions fell 8.1%, to approximately 606,000 students.
“What we see is not students leaving technical work,” said Natasha Kacharia, co-founder of Nova Learning, who holds a B.S. and M.S. in Product Design and Computer Science from Stanford University. “It is students picking different technical work. The advantage lies in knowing how to use AI as an accelerator, rather than simply knowing how to code. The layer of abstraction underlying technical work will continue to evolve.”
The results reflect two cohorts of students surveyed in 2025 and 2026. The respondents did not overlap, so the findings show differences in the composition of the cohorts rather than changes in student preferences over time.
Methodology
Nova Learning surveyed 463 middle and high school students in 2025 and 677 in 2026 through interest and intake forms. Students selected one academic-interest category from 25 options. The sample primarily included students from the U.S. West Coast and was not designed to be nationally representative.
About Nova Learning Group: Nova Learning is a white-label platform for academic mentorship. Education companies run research and enrichment programs under their own brands using Nova Learning’s software, mentor network, and curriculum. Founded in 2024, Nova Learning has served thousands of students through partner organizations in more than 15 countries, supported by a network of more than 450 mentors. For more information, visit novalearninggroup.org or connect with Nova Learning on LinkedIn.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260918581112/en/
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