An IT degree no longer opens the door to the profession: graduates' starting pay fell 13%

Half the earnings drop came not from pay cuts, but from recent graduates moving into restaurants and retail.

F. Fabulinnews writer

A graduate's chance of finding a job in the first three months after graduation fell by 5 percentage points.

That is how the U.S. Census Bureau measured outcomes for the 10% of majors most exposed to AI (working paper CES-26-56, 10.09.2026). Their starting quarterly earnings fell by 13%, and the authors compare the effect to graduating into a major recession.

The drop is not in salaries. Around half of the earnings decline came not from revised pay within the industry, but from moves into lower-paid sectors: restaurants and retail. Those are the waiters and sales clerks in question.

Young-worker hiring slumped before graduation cohorts did. Employment among workers aged 22–24 in the fifth of industries hardest hit by AI fell by 12% over ten quarters after ChatGPT's release, while hiring of young specialists fell by 9% (U.S. Census Bureau, CES-26-27, 01.04.2026).

**The entry point narrowed; the top stayed open.** In software development, entry-level openings account for 4.5% of all postings in the first quarter of 2026, less than in any other industry. At the same time, 71% of the year-over-year growth in openings through May 2026 went to senior roles (Indeed Hiring Lab, July 2026).

Russia shows the same pattern in competition for each opening. The hh index in IT rose over a year from 11.6 to 22.9 resumes per vacancy, a historic high, while anything above 12 is already considered extremely high competition (hh.ru data, April 2026). The number of openings fell by at least a third.

Experienced salaries are falling too. Seniors in Russia lost 7.3% year over year, manual testers 15%, and automation specialists 10% (Selecty sample, 874 offers from the first quarter of 2026).

Computer science enrollment in the U.S. fell at every level in fall 2025, by as much as 14% in master's programs, and the next graduating cohorts will enter the market in smaller numbers.

An IT degree no longer opens the door to the profession: graduates' starting pay fell 13%

Half the earnings drop came not from pay cuts, but from recent graduates moving into restaurants and retail.

F. Fabulinnews writer

A graduate's chance of finding a job in the first three months after graduation fell by 5 percentage points.

Experienced salaries are falling too. Seniors in Russia lost 7.3% year over year, manual testers 15%, and automation specialists 10% (Selecty sample, 874 offers from the first quarter of 2026).

Computer science enrollment in the U.S. fell at every level in fall 2025, by as much as 14% in master's programs, and the next graduating cohorts will enter the market in smaller numbers.