Majoring in AI Is Like Majoring in Excel. A Citadel Veteran Says Study Anthropology Instead.
The computer-science degree stopped being a golden ticket. The people doing the hiring now want math you can do on a whiteboard, philosophy you can defend, and a working theory of what makes humans worth paying.
By Sean Anees Saifi · Capital Wealth · Published Monday, September 21, 2026 · Source: The Wall Street Journal, Monday, September 21, 2026 edition, whose market figures are the Friday, September 18 close, Personal Journal (On the Clock)
Key Points
A computer-science degree is no longer a sure path to a job: two decades of students stampeding into the major produced more coders than companies need, and AI makes the oversupply worse, the Journal’s Callum Borchers writes.
Peter Miscovich, an executive managing director at JLL (JLL), says an AI-specific degree is too narrow because every C-suite job needs AI skills — he compares it to majoring in Excel.
Alec Litowitz, an early Citadel partner who studied math at MIT and later earned a law degree and an MBA, credits his second major, anthropology; his book The Adaptability Quotient is out this month, and he says he’d pick philosophy if he were starting over.
Ernst & Young said last week it’s creating a $100 million bonus pool for employees who show value AI can’t replace; Insight Global’s IG Labs puts candidates at a whiteboard in person to rule out AI-assisted cheating, and its CEO rates math majors highly.
New York Fed data on graduates aged 22–27: philosophy majors are more than twice as likely as computer-science majors to be underemployed, but less likely to be unemployed than CS, computer-engineering, information-systems or physics majors.
$100M
EY bonus pool for employees who show value AI can’t replace
2x+
underemployment odds, philosophy vs. CS grads (NY Fed)
22–27
ages covered by the New York Fed’s recent-graduate data
Excel
what a JLL executive says an AI-specific major amounts to
The whiteboard is back in the interview room, because it’s the one place a chatbot can’t sit.
In one line: When machines commoditize what you learned, the durable asset is how you think — and a family’s biggest investment is usually still the earning power of the person, not the major on the diploma.
Peter Miscovich has a way of ending the argument about AI degrees. The JLL (JLL) executive managing director, a future-of-work adviser to big tenants, told the Journal’s Callum Borchers that a major built around AI is too narrow — every C-suite job needs AI fluency eventually, he argues, so a specialized degree could look antique in a decade. “It’s sort of like saying you majored in Excel,” he said. Meanwhile the safe pick of the past twenty years, computer science, isn’t safe anymore: a stampede of students produced more coders than companies need, and AI makes the glut worse.
So what do you study instead? Borchers asked executives, investors and academics, and the answers read like a liberal-arts catalog. Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s vice president of education, says human skills matter more as AI takes on complex work. Alec Litowitz — math at MIT, then a law degree, an MBA and an early partnership at Citadel — leans hardest on his second major, anthropology, which taught him to observe a system from inside it. His book, The Adaptability Quotient, out this month, argues AI has commoditized much of what college teaches, or soon does, so spend the tuition on critical thinking and understanding people. Asked what he’d pick starting over, he chose a third door: philosophy.
The whiteboard is back
Employers are already paying for this. Ernst & Young said last week it’s creating a $100 million bonus pool for employees who show value AI can’t replace. Bert Bean, chief executive of staffing firm Insight Global, says its IG Labs AI unit puts promising candidates at a whiteboard, in person, because a video interview can’t tell a strong applicant from a strong prompt; he likes math majors. The data half-agrees: New York Fed figures on graduates aged 22 to 27 show philosophy majors more than twice as likely as computer-science majors to be underemployed, yet less likely to be unemployed than peers in computer science, computer engineering, information systems or physics. AI companies hire philosophers too: Anthropic has one helping teach Claude morality; OpenAI and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Google have similar roles. Career coach Jeremy Schifeling adds the quiet cost: students pick tech majors that don’t suit them, then drop out.
Our read
Here’s our planning frame. For most households still in their working years, the largest asset isn’t the house or the 401(k); it’s the future earning power of the people in it, and it never shows up on a statement. Behavioral: the 529 isn’t the bet — the money generally works for trade school, registered apprenticeships and a different beneficiary too — the major is, and it’s a nineteen-year-old’s guess about a labor market two decades out. The durable version of that bet is Litowitz’s: skills that survive the tool changing. A narrow credential is a single-stock position; a way of thinking is the index fund.
The Excel line lands because everyone over 40 remembers when Excel was the skill. It’s still useful; it just isn’t a career. So don’t bet the house on one path, for a kid or for yourself: keep the emergency fund fat enough to survive a pivot, keep a retraining line in the budget, and treat Schifeling’s drop-out risk as a real cost — a wasted year of tuition is the expensive kind. If the college plan hasn’t been touched since the acceptance letter, fifteen minutes with the 529 statement is the place to start.
What It Means For Your Portfolio
Hold — fund the thinker, not the tool; skills outlast the major
For most working households the biggest asset is the one that isn’t on any statement — future earning power — and its best protection is the kind of skill a tool can’t replace.
General planning principles, not advice for anyone in particular. Human capital is the largest asset most working households own, and it’s undiversified by nature. When a field commoditizes overnight, the plan that survives is the one that didn’t lean on a single credential: a real emergency fund, a retraining line in the budget and skills that transfer across tools.
For families funding education, the choice of major is an investment decision with a very long horizon, and a 529 generally leaves room to change it — the money can follow a student to trade school, a registered apprenticeship or another family member. The durable payoff, the people in this story argue, comes from critical thinking and an understanding of people — and thinking on your feet is exactly what the whiteboard interview is built to test.
