Since the Great Recession left technology as a rare spot of optimism in American industry, computer science has been among the fastest-growing college majors in the country, according to indispensable degree data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
From 2008 to 2024, the number of four-year computer science degrees granted rose about fivefold. That’s more than double the pace of the next fastest-growing large majors: exercise science, nursing and mechanical engineering.
Now there are signs that the 15-year boom in computer science education may be ending or at least morphing. The change is not showing up in graduations — at least not yet. But we can see it in enrollment data from the nonprofit National Student Clearinghouse, which crunches numbers from 97 percent of U.S. universities.
Student enrollment in computer science at four-year colleges fell 8.1 percent in the fall of 2025. In absolute numbers, it’s the biggest one-year drop of any major discipline going back to at least 2020. In a single year, computer science fell from the fourth-largest undergraduate major to sixth. (Business, health and liberal arts have consistently taken the top three spots.)