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Access to high school computer science courses has plateaued, and overall high school student participation in those classes has declined slightly, concludes Code.org’s annual report on the state of computer science education.
Nationwide, 60% of public high schools offered foundational computer science classes, and 6.1% of eligible students were enrolled in these classes, in the 2024-25 school year, the report found. In the 2023-24 school year, the same proportion of schools offered these courses but 6.4% of students were enrolled.
Part of the reason for the plateau and slight decline could be that the number of states that require students to take a computer science course to earn a high school diploma only increased by one. This year, West Virginia joined 11 other states with such a requirement, according to the report from Code.org, a nonprofit that seeks to expand computer science education. The other states are Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Among the states with a graduation requirement, access increased from 74% to 76%, and participation increased from 9% to 10.4% of students eligible to take computer science classes, the report found.
For the first time, the annual report also features a state-by-state analysis of AI education guidance or policies. So far, four states emphasize artificial intelligence in their computer science standards, five provide AI and computer science professional development funding, and 17 have guidance that emphasizes computer science education as fundamental to AI literacy.
The relevance of computer science education is being questioned in the age of AI. Some software engineers are concerned about job security and high school computer science students have wondered if it’s still worth it to learn to code. But experts argue it’s still valuable to learn to code along with foundational computer science principles, because those are the skills that will help them better navigate an AI-powered world.
In a conversation with Education Week, Pat Yongpradit, the chief academic officer for Code.org, discussed the report and the importance of state and school district policies to help bring computer science education to every student.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What are your big takeaways from this report?
States need to make the move now to require computer science, especially if we’re going to remain globally competitive in an age of AI—asking kids to take [computer science classes] is the minimum to prepare them for an age of AI.
Second, I’d say that AI is an opportunity to broaden the relevance of a computer science experience so that more kids choose to participate when they have the opportunity. That should grow the enrollment percentage as well.
Computer science, unlike many other subjects, has evolved tremendously over the last five, six decades since its introduction. If computer science doesn’t evolve with this new technology, there’s a risk of it losing relevance, and kids not choosing to take it. But if it does lean into the new technology, we’re going to see a renaissance in kids wanting to learn computer science, because they’ll see the tie-in to all this AI stuff that they hear about.
What impact do graduation requirements have on students’ interest in computer science-related careers?
Anecdotally, here’s the thing: How can a kid decide whether they like something or not, until they actually take it, until they even have the opportunity to take it?
All this computer science stuff is about giving kids that opportunity to decide. You cannot decide when it’s not even on the menu, and even when it’s on the menu, you sometimes have to put people in a position where they’re going to learn something so that they can decide whether they want to get into it further or not.
Why? Because there are a lot of stereotypes out there about who should be taking computer science or not. But when you “force” kids to learn a little something about computer science, you give them the opportunity to see, “Oh, yeah, I can learn this. And no, it has nothing to do with my gender, this is just what it is. It’s cool. And yes, I should [continue learning this].” I saw that firsthand as a teacher.
Data-wise, Maryland has a longitudinal data system where they track high school course-taking all the way to what career kids have after they graduate and how much money they’re making. They found out that not only is participation in a high school computer science course indicative of participation later on [in] undergrad and then getting a job in that field. But it’s also indicative of higher earnings as well.
That’s like the Holy Grail of the education-to-workforce pipeline thinking. That’s what we want. We want to have kids take these experiences in high school and translate them into future earnings.
A couple states—Mississippi and South Carolina—have seen high participation from girls. How have they done that?
Graduation requirements. South Carolina is [one of the first states] in the nation to make computer science a graduation requirement, so it’s no surprise that they have [gender] parity. Mississippi has a computer science and technology graduation requirement. That means it’s not just computer science courses that earn that credit, you can take some general tech courses as well, but the majority of kids who go after that credit get it through a computer science course.
These things still take time to have effect. If you look at Mississippi, 87% of the schools offer computer science so that means there are still some schools that probably just offer a tech course for those kids to get their credit, and they don’t even have an option for a kid to take a computer science course to earn that credit.
Is a graduation requirement the most effective way to close that participation gap?
It is the biggest, most effective way. It sounds like it’s like forcing people, but we force kids to take, like, 10 years of math. All we’re saying is one little itty bitty computer science course, at some point.
In education, we make mandatory the things that we feel are core and foundational. If we want to move kids into an age of AI, they should probably learn a little bit of computer science.
What should states do to continue to move the needle in computer science education?
They should adopt those policies—put AI into standards, adopt an AI and CS graduation requirement, fund PD, and develop guidance that is comprehensive and talks about the fundamental roles.
Computer science is much more than just coding and teaches lots of other stuff. Coding might change, but computer science education overall still is fundamental.
Computer science is a rich and willing context for AI education. People are talking about societal things in computer science class now.
