Over the next month, nearly 4 million students will graduate from college and begin the transition into the workforce. But the path to that first job is increasingly treacherous. Artificial intelligence is accelerating the automation of the entry-level roles—positions that, until recently, have served as critical launchpads for new graduates.
Nearly 80 percent of hiring managers now expect AI to reduce the number of internships and entry-level opportunities. Today’s graduates are feeling the pressure, with more than 60 percent of college seniors surveyed by Handshake reporting feeling concerned about what AI tools mean for their job prospects. In a recent survey by Indeed, 45 percent of Gen Z workers went as far as to say they worry AI has made their degree irrelevant. Even Pope Leo XIV, in his inaugural address this month, sounded the alarm about artificial intelligence’s impact on the workforce, drawing parallels to the disruptions of the Industrial Revolution.
As a mother of three daughters who recently navigated the leap from college to career, I have seen firsthand how AI is reshaping what early “career readiness” really means for them and their peers. Declining first job opportunities is not just about lost paychecks. College graduates will also miss out on the kind of formative, early skill-building that has long helped them succeed throughout their careers. If young workers can no longer count on learning those skills on the job, then colleges and employers need to ensure they gain them before graduating. That means equipping students with higher-order thinking, hands-on work experience, and the ability to use AI as a copilot, not a competitor.
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This shift requires ensuring students gain real-world experience as early as possible. While higher education has long facilitated opportunities like co-op models, internships, and apprenticeships, institutions have traditionally treated work experience as a valuable but peripheral extracurricular activity. That’s starting to change.
Across the country, colleges are increasingly working to integrate work-based learning directly into the academic experience, offering students immediate hands-on opportunities that connect what’s happening in the classroom with real-world practice. For instance, Complete College America has partnered with Canadian education startup Riipen to launch an AI Readiness Consortium, designed to expand access to employer-embedded learning experiences focused on the use of Al and other emerging technologies.
It’s one of a growing number of experiential learning opportunities giving students a chance to tackle real business challenges on behalf of real companies, often in teams, under deadlines, and with feedback from industry professionals. Whether it’s analyzing market trends for a small business or developing a communications strategy for a nonprofit, students gain hands-on experience while building essential skills like communication, collaboration, and critical thinking. In effect, they’re getting a taste of their first job or internship without ever leaving campus.
Working directly with employers is critical. At the University of Texas at El Paso, for example, students are employed part-time by a major credit card company while earning their degrees. These students aren’t just making phone calls. They’re developing valuable job skills and expanding their professional networks, while also earning a paycheck and receiving employer-funded tuition assistance.
This kind of “learn-and-earn” approach offers a response to the AI-fueled erosion of entry-level work. It bridges the growing gap between academic learning and job readiness, especially for students who don’t have the networks or resources to secure internships on their own. And it helps employers build a talent pipeline grounded in real skills and potential.
But as promising as these opportunities are, they, too, will need to evolve. After all, roles like those in credit card call centers are among the very jobs most vulnerable to automation. Critical thinking looks different when you’re brainstorming ideas with an AI agent rather than a human colleague. Teamwork and communication remain prized competencies, but what does that mean when your newest colleague is a machine? Preparing students for the future of work means helping them understand how to collaborate, problem-solve, and create in a world where AI is part of the team.
Just as AI is transforming the nature of work, it must also transform how we prepare students for it. But as National University president and higher education technology expert Mark Milliron wrote last year, “It’s important to remember that as impressive as this technology is, and as fast as the pace of change has become, we’ve been here before. Higher education worked to adapt to the internet, to social media, to mobile technology.” That doesn’t mean the challenge isn’t real, but it does mean we know how to respond. And we know this moment demands more than updating coursework or encouraging more students to visit the career services office.
In a world where the experience gained on a first job is no longer guaranteed, colleges and employers will need to work together to redesign where, when, and how learning happens.
