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Dartmouth bets $30M on a bold career readiness pipeline to outsmart AI

By Damilola Esebame TheStreet

Updated May 21, 2026 7:21 AM

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the labor market at a pace most colleges and universities did not anticipate, and the consequences are falling hardest on the youngest workers entering the labor market.

Entry-level positions in technology, finance, and other white-collar fields are shrinking as hiring managers replace junior roles with automated tools that cost a fraction of a new graduate's salary.

Dartmouth College, an Ivy League institution, is investing substantial funds in that conviction with a strategy centered on real-world work experience and intensive career coaching, CNBC reported.

Dartmouth's $30 million internship endowment targets the AI hiring gap

Dartmouth recently raised $30 million in endowed funds specifically to support internship opportunities for its undergraduate students, the school revealed through its Center for Career Design.

The endowment allows any undergraduate to access up to $6,500 during a given academic term to finance an unpaid or underpaid internship in fields ranging from public service to the arts and conservation, CNBC reported.

"Higher education needs to do better," said Joseph Catrino, the inaugural executive director of Dartmouth's Center for Career Design, in an interview with CNBC. "We need to do better for our students; we need to step up and help students be prepared."

The funding removes a financial barrier that has historically prevented students from lower-income families from pursuing internships in sectors that cannot offer competitive pay. "This allows the student to explore and engage in a field that they normally wouldn't be able to," Catrino noted.

AI is eliminating the entry-level jobs that graduates once counted on

The urgency behind Dartmouth's investment becomes clearer when you examine how artificial intelligence is actively reshaping hiring patterns across entire industries and eliminating positions that new graduates traditionally filled right after commencement.

Positions in technology and finance face the greatest disruption because generative AI can now replicate the analytical work that junior employees once handled, according to a 2025 Indeed report.

More AI:

Young workers in AI-exposed roles such as software development and customer support have already experienced measurable declines in employment, a separate 2025 Stanford University report confirmed, according to CNBC.

A January 2026 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reviewed government employment data and found some decline in employment for young workers in the most AI-exposed occupations, though the researchers noted the data did not indicate widespread disruption.

The Dallas Fed researchers noted, however, that the overall impact of AI on early-career roles remained small at the time of publication, which suggests the disruption is still in its early stages and could accelerate in the years ahead.

AI is rapidly replacing entry-level roles in tech and finance, raising concerns about shrinking opportunities for recent college graduates.

Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty Images

Students are rethinking their majors and career plans because of AI

The uncertainty in the labor market is not lost on the students themselves, and recent survey data reveal a generation actively reconsidering the academic choices they once believed would lead to stable employment after graduation.

Young people and recent grads are getting more in line with the reality of this job market, where there are fewer opportunities than there were during the post-pandemic recovery.

About two-thirds of students described the job market as either fair or poor, and four in 10 reported that they had considered changing their field of study because of AI, the CNBC and SurveyMonkey Quarterly AI and Jobs Survey found.

Key findings from the CNBC and SurveyMonkey survey

Roughly 36% of students surveyed said they had considered switching their target industry entirely because they were concerned that AI could displace workers in their chosen field.
Nearly half of respondents (49%) reported reconsidering the specific skills they prioritized in their coursework and overall career preparation.
The survey polled approximately 3,600 people in April, including nearly 800 students across the United States, providing a broad snapshot of workforce-related anxiety.

The share of students reconsidering their academic paths will likely climb higher in the years ahead, Eric Greenberg, president of Greenberg Educational Group, a New York City education services firm, told CNBC.

"What particularly complicates choosing a major now is the unpredictability regarding which majors will be most and least impacted by AI, which can, of course, dramatically change job prospects," Greenberg explained.

CUNY and other universities are building similar career-readiness pipelines

Dartmouth is not the only institution responding to the shifting employment landscape; several other universities have launched large-scale efforts to connect students with hands-on work experience before they graduate.

The City University of New York launched a comprehensive initiative aiming to improve career outcomes for its 180,000 undergraduates by 2030 by integrating career-connected advising, paid internships, apprenticeships, and direct collaborations with industry specialists across every academic concentration, CNBC reported.

"Success depends on our ability to change and adapt," CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez said in a statement about the announcement, as CNBC noted. Later in the same address, he added, "It's not enough for students to graduate with a degree… they must leave with direction, preparation, experience, and connections."

Dartmouth's career center expansion signals a broader shift in higher education

The Ivy League school's investment extends well beyond the $30 million internship endowment, and Dartmouth has outlined a broader $94 million fundraising goal for coaching, AI-powered career tools, and career design programming, of which $61 million has been raised so far, the university confirmed.

The center has already doubled its staff from 11 to 22 employees, including seven full-time career coaches, and launched six Career Communities open to all undergraduates regardless of their major or class year, Dartmouth reported.

The Class of 2025 posted a 96.1% success rate six months after graduation, with alumni working across more than a dozen industries. "We have to be on it, and we have to be nimble and quick," Catrino told CNBC. "Higher education has a big task at hand."

Dartmouth and CUNY are among the institutions investing in career-readiness programs at scale, as research like the Dallas Fed analysis and the CNBC/SurveyMonkey survey points to mounting student anxiety about post-graduation prospects.

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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 7:07 AM.