In a Spring 2024 Education Next article, I argued that, despite the conventional wisdom that students were all in on artificial intelligence (AI), many in high school and college felt deeply anxious about its impacts on the future jobs available to them and what they should be learning now.

A new survey suggests that parents also have big concerns—around their children’s future job prospects, what they learn in school, and whether they should even go to college.

College Guidance Network, which provides AI-powered expert guidance to parents around colleges and careers (and for which I host live shows for parents on the topic of careers), conducted the survey of 602 parents of U.S. high schoolers that were nationally representative based on household income, student gender, region, and school type.

In an era when the college-going rate of high school graduates has dropped from an all-time high of 70 percent in 2016 to roughly 62 percent now, AI seems to be heightening the anxieties about the value of college.

According to the survey, two-thirds of parents say AI is impacting their view of the value of college. Thirty-seven percent of parents indicate they are now scrutinizing college’s “career-placement outcomes”; 36 percent say they are looking at a college’s “AI-skills curriculum,” while 35 percent respond that a “human-skills emphasis” is important to them.

This echoes what I increasingly hear from college leadership: Parents and students demand to see a difference between what they are getting from a college and what they could be “learning from AI.”

Indeed, parents are at least cognizant of backup options to college, with 51 percent saying that, should the value of a four-year school erode, community college or career-technical school would be desirable, and 20 percent pointing to apprenticeships. Interestingly enough, parents of children in private and charter schools were 6 percentage points more likely to be interested in apprenticeships.

Parental concerns aren’t muted, either.

The survey found that 62 percent of parents discussed “AI and the future of work” in the previous two weeks, with one-third saying they discuss it on a weekly basis.

When asked what three words they would use to “capture how [they] feel about the AI-driven future [their] teen will be entering into, the words used most often were concerned, cautious, uncertain, and worried. That tracks with the additional finding that 53 percent of parents are somewhat or very concerned that AI will narrow their children’s job prospects.

Interestingly, 30 percent express an optimistic view of AI’s impact on the job market. The parents of children who attend private or charter schools are 5 percentage points more likely to take that perspective.

This reflects some of the more positive words that appeared in the list that parents used to describe an AI-driven future: optimistic, hopeful, exciting, interesting, and challenging. These were, however, cited less often than the anxiety-tinged words.

Finally, 31 percent of parents say their teens use ChatGPT-like tools daily. Among those with children in private or charter schools, that number rises to 37 percent.

This paradox seems to be central: Students are using AI, but they are anxious. Their parents are, too.

How all this will impact college-going rates is still anyone’s guess, but the anxiety is certainly weighing on the minds of the parents who often foot the college bill.

Michael B. Horn is an executive editor of Education Next, co-founder of and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, and author of From Reopen to Reinvent.