Fortune, Apr. 4, 2026

College grads in ‘AI-proof’ careers like psychology and education are seeing negative returns on their degrees

There’s a boom in the economy: economics papers on the souring prospects of the recent college graduate in the AI-era economy of the 2020s. Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found in September 2025 that the college wage premium remains, but has barely moved since 2000, while the San Francisco Fed attributed that stagnation primarily to less demand for those workers, in a working paper shortly afterward. The World Economic Forum found earlier this year that AI skills now command a 23% wage premium versus only 8% for a bachelor’s degree in isolation. Dallas Fed economist J. Scott Davis may have made the biggest splash in February 2026 with a paper that found AI is simultaneously reducing entry-level hiring and raising wages for experienced workers in the same AI-exposed occupations.

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