Educational Exposure to Generative Artificial Intelligence

Author

Jean Xiao Timmerman

Posted to EERN: September 23, 2025

FEDERAL RESERVE RESEARCH: Board of Governors

Given the fast and pervasive adoption of generative AI, it is important to explore how generative AI’s effect on labor markets may influence postsecondary institutions and their students, considering the technology’s potential to reshape workplace dynamics and the types of skills that are valued. Postsecondary institutions play a significant role in preparing students for the labor market, and their ability to respond to these changes will influence both individual students’ career trajectories and broader economic outcomes. In this note, I conduct analysis to determine which college majors, demographic groups, and educational institutions – as provided in the biannual National Survey of College Graduates 2013-2021 – may be most or significantly affected by generative AI’s predicted impact on the labor market, as measured by Felten et al. (2023)’s occupational exposure scores of two applications of generative AI (i.e., language modeling and image generation). Postsecondary institutions and students should monitor these areas of predicted impact closely as to best adapt to the changing landscape.

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