As companies integrate artificial intelligence into the workforce, college graduates in virtually every industry will likely need experience working with AI tools to secure jobs.But educators and career experts say if colleges and universities want to best prepare students for the changing landscape, those institutions need to support students in building technical AI skills while continuing to teach the soft skills necessary for competent, ethical and effective AI use, including critical thinking, problem solving and creativity. "If the purpose of [higher education's] training is to train kids to be able to do the jobs of today and tomorrow, why would we train them using the skills of yesterday?" says Jeff Crume, adjunct professor of cybersecurity at North Carolina State University. The job market has been tough for young workers in recent years. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates, defined as workers ages 22 through 27 with at least a bachelor's degree, was 5.6% as of December, well above the 3.1% rate for all college grads, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Since January 2023, job listings for entry-level positions have dropped about 35%, largely due to AI, according to a 2025 study from labor research firm Revelio Labs. A Stanford University study from November similarly found early-career workers in the most AI-exposed occupations, such as software engineers and customer service representatives, declined 16% between 2022 and 2025.There is some good news: Employers expect to hire 5.6% more new graduates this spring, according to April survey data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a professional organization. And while the survey found that 35% of entry-level jobs require AI skills, 52% of the employers surveyed said AI was not reducing the need for entry-level workers' tasks. Most employers, 55%, reported plans to maintain new hiring this spring, while another 34% plan to increase hiring, NACE reports.All things considered, Crume and other experts say it is imperative that colleges and universities support students' education in using AI tools, and graduating seniors agree. The majority, 58%, of surveyed college seniors say they will need a better understanding of AI to succeed, according to the 2026 graduate report from Handshake, a career networking site for college students. Yet just 27% of those students say AI was meaningfully integrated into their academic program.Some schools have added AI courses and AI-specific degrees. In 2018, Carnegie Mellon University introduced the first bachelor of science degree in artificial intelligence in the U.S., and at least a dozen schools have followed suit since.But while having technical AI expertise may currently be a lucrative specialty, educators and career experts emphasize that future workers still need a well-rounded education that emphasizes human-centric soft skills, and some institutions may still need to catch up.The role of colleges in the AI economyAt the institutional level, AI adoption varies greatly. Some schools prohibit the use of generative AI, a tool that uses machine learning to create new content. Others, such as Ohio State University and Purdue University, require a basic level of AI competency for graduation and mandate coursework or integration in existing classes to help students meet that standard. More than half of surveyed college students nationwide say AI use is discouraged or outright prohibited at their institution, according to an October poll from Lumina Foundation, a higher education philanthropy organization. Still, 57% of respondents report at least weekly AI use, according to the survey, most commonly to save time or help them understand complex material.Among polled faculty members, 61% say they've used AI in their teaching, but 88% of that group says they do so minimally or moderately, a 2025 global survey from Digital Education Council, a collective of academic institutions collaborating to shape and navigate tech in higher education, found. Among those who use AI, DEC finds the most common uses for educators are:Creating teaching materialsSupporting administrative tasksTeaching students to use and evaluate AI in classAs GenAI came onto the market, colleges have been quick to take note, says Alondra Nelson, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, who founded the research center's Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab. Many schools offer AI coursework, if not full-on degree programs. As many as 44% of higher education institutions were offering AI coursework as of early 2025, according to market research firm Validated Insights. "Very early on, it was clear that boards of trustees of universities were telling deans and provosts and presidents to have an AI strategy," Nelson says.Some schools encourage AI use with the understanding that AI competency should not be limited to technical skills. For example, Ohio State rolled out its AI Fluency initiative in fall 2025, which includes required first-year courses on generative AI, technical training in AI tools and education on ethical and secure use of the tools, the school said in its announcement. The 'most important skill' in the AI eraHowever, career experts agree that technical AI knowledge, like how to prompt large language models or create AI-powered chatbots, won't be enough. Soft skills will continue to be crucial for entry-level workers to land jobs, Crume and other experts say. Employers ranked soft skills such as communication, teamwork and critical thinking higher than AI skills in importance, in NACE's 2026 survey. But only around half of the employers surveyed reported recent graduates to be very or extremely proficient in communication and critical thinking. Most employers, 75%, said grads are very or extremely proficient in teamwork, however. In his "limited experience," Crume says, schools can be doing better to make sure students are getting the soft skills they need to thrive in the workplace and in their daily life. It's a challenge that he says has existed for many generations to make humanities subjects — like history and languages, where students gain those critical thinking skills — relevant and engaging for students. Crume, whose students often go into research and development or IT roles at organizations leveraging AI after college, says that they still need humanities and social science education because "we need an AI that is going to be human-centered and is going to respond to what we want it to do," he says. In that vein, he also calls critical thinking the "most important skill" in the AI era.Marc Watkins, assistant director of academic innovation and director of the AI Institute for Teachers at the University of Mississippi, agrees. "You look at the actual workforce…about what students need, and [it] really is critical thinking. It's communication," he says.While AI technology may eliminate a number of roles and tasks workers do now, Crume says it will also create new jobs. Both at work and at home, workers will continue to need critical thinking skills to evaluate information, make smart decisions and solve complex problems."What the college education needs to do...[is] allow people to learn how to exercise that kind of critical thinking that's going to be important and really at the center of the solutions to a lot of the social issues that we think are only technical," says Nelson.While employers are increasingly looking for technical AI and related software skills in hiring, they also still seek workers highly competent in soft skills, says Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake."Even with the emergence of AI literacy and AI skills, the most commonly named skills across all job descriptions are still the core durable skills — communication, conflict management, teamwork, critical thinking," she says.How institutions can improve in their AI approachThough embracing AI is neither a small nor uniform task for colleges, experts generally agree that the tech cannot be ignored. Even students who go into jobs that don't rely heavily on AI will have to interact with the technology in some capacity, whether it's working with an AI customer service agent or deciphering if an image is real or computer-generated, Nelson says.Simply keeping up with AI developments is one of the challenges institutions face, Cruzvergara says. "The development of AI and what it can do is happening — it's changing literally week by week, and higher education isn't built for that level of speed," she says. In response, colleges and universities should invest in providing access for students to AI tools, including premium chatbot subscriptions, Cruzvergara and Watkins say. It's one thing to permit students to use AI software like Claude or ChatGPT to enhance their learning. But inequalities could arise if students who can afford premium subscriptions have an advantage over students who can only access free models, Watkins says. Paid subscriptions for GenAI programs can generally offer better prompt responses and more privacy, something Watkins says can make a difference in whether or not students use the tools. Additionally, institutions and educators need to effectively communicate their standards for AI use, so students are clear on when it's appropriate to use the tools and where the tools may fall short, experts say.AI can help with problem solving, but without understanding what really matters to the person asking and their motivation, the machine can only help so much, says Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, founder of Decisive, a decision sciences company, and adjunct professor at Cornell's SC Johnson School of Business. She says she aims to show her students the "vast knowledge" and power AI tools have while also emphasizing the importance of their human input."Our decisions are the way that we get to our future, and AI can only give us other people's answers," she says. Want to get ahead at work? 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