A new report warns that graduate degrees in fields often thought to be "AI-proof" — such as psychology and education — can actually leave degree-holders worse off financially once tuition and fees are taken into account. The Postsecondary Education and Economic Research Center found that some master’s and doctoral programs produce negative cost-adjusted returns, with psychology graduate degrees showing by far the worst outcome: an estimated -8% change in lifetime income after accounting for the cost of attendance.
The study breaks down returns by program and incorporates the direct cost of graduate study into lifetime earnings projections. Clinical psychology, a more specialized track within psychology, posts a -5% cost-adjusted return, the report says. Degrees in social work and in curriculum and instruction also deliver negative returns, according to the center’s analysis. By contrast, some technical fields still show gains: computer science graduate degrees offer a modest 6% return after costs, the report found.
The findings arrive as more Americans are pursuing postgraduate credentials. The U.S. Census Bureau data cited in the report shows the share of Americans with a graduate degree rose from 31% in 1993 to 42% in 2022, reflecting a long-term trend of students “hedging” their bets with additional credentials to boost lifetime earnings. Joseph G. Altonji, a Yale economist and co-author of the study, told Fortune that prospective graduate students should weigh earnings potential and the kinds of occupations degrees lead to before enrolling.
Economists and central banks have increasingly flagged that higher education’s payoff is shifting amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Recent research from Harvard economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin found the college wage premium has barely moved since 2000, and a San Francisco Fed working paper attributed much of that stagnation to weaker demand for college-educated labor. Other analyses suggest AI skills are commanding a growing wage premium: the World Economic Forum estimated earlier this year that AI capabilities now add about a 23% wage premium, compared with roughly 8% for a bachelor’s degree alone. A February 2026 paper by Dallas Fed economist J. Scott Davis argued that AI is simultaneously dampening entry-level hiring while boosting wages for experienced workers in AI-exposed occupations.
Those market dynamics help explain why degrees in fields traditionally seen as resilient to automation can still produce poor financial returns. Research from Anthropic released last month suggested AI systems are theoretically capable of performing a majority of tasks across white-collar fields — ranging from engineering to law and finance — intensifying pressure on both new entrants and middle-tier professionals to demonstrate distinct, high-value skills.
The Postsecondary Education and Economic Research Center’s report does not argue against pursuing vocations such as teaching or counseling on the basis of public service or nonfinancial motivations. Still, it underscores a growing divergence between perceived job security and actual economic payoff. As many students continue to view graduate school as a path to better outcomes, the study’s authors and outside economists urge clearer information about post-graduate earnings trajectories and the occupational pathways tied to specific degrees.
“If you’re thinking about graduate school, you want to get some information about what the earnings potential is coming out of the degree as well as the kinds of occupations and jobs it leads to,” Altonji said. The new report makes that economic calculus more stark: for some popular, service-oriented graduate programs, the financial investment may not pay off in lifetime income terms.