AI, student loan changes and the job market stressing LI college students, families

Samuel Santos-Robles is doing everything he can to keep costs down as an incoming mechanical and aerospace engineering student at Hofstra University.

The 18-year-old, who starts classes at the Hempstead university on Sept. 2, won a hefty scholarship that covers well over half the nearly $60,000 cost of tuition. As a senior at West Hempstead High School last year, he earned enough credits at Nassau Community College that he could graduate in as little as three years. He’ll be commuting from his home in West Hempstead, and he plans to work part time.

Even so, while he's looking forward to playing sports, studying and making new friends, Santos-Robles said he feels stressed about finances, especially when it comes to the changes artificial intelligence is wreaking on the job market.

AI, he said, “has greatly impacted the workforce. … I feel like it's hard to show that you're unique compared to everyone else going for the same job. Every entry-level job has such ludicrous requirements.”

He is not the only one coping with a stomach-churning mix of excitement and anxiety as students head back to college this year. On Long Island and across the country, students, parents and faculty alike are facing financial challenges that include the impact of AI and economic turmoil over career prospects as well as more stringent terms for student loan repayment programs.

"It's crazy, everything is going up except our pay," said Ricky Hodges, 45, a certified nursing assistant from upstate Gloversville, who on Thursday helped his 17-year-old daughter, Amaiah, move into her dorm at Adelphi University in Garden City. Amaiah, a nursing student, received a full scholarship, which is a "big financial relief," he said.

"We basically try to budget our money and premeditate what we're going to get ahead of time so we know what we'll be spending," he said.

For their part, universities are coping with cuts in federal research funding by the Trump administration. Long Island’s flagship public research university, Stony Brook University, has lost about 30 grants with a total value of $25 million, though some were later restored, according to the university.

At Hofstra, a university spokeswoman said a $400,000 National Science Foundation grant was canceled because the professor involved left for another college, but they have otherwise not been impacted. President Susan Poser, in a statement forwarded by a representative, said the school was “closely monitoring potential federal funding cuts to higher education and research.”

“There's a universal feeling of anxiety about the stability of funding from the federal government … especially among the people that are in earlier stages of their careers,” said Josh Dubnau, a professor in the departments of anesthesiology and neurobiology and behavior at Stony Brook University.

Student loan, job search worries

Experts say the bulk of the financial stress is landing on students and their parents. 

Families “are very stressed about the economy,” in part due to the potential impact of tariffs on the job market, said Susan Quigley, a certified financial planner in Garden City. “I've seen people having a hard time getting a job again. … It doesn't matter that the tariffs haven't kicked in in every sector yet, the anticipation of it has, and people are hiring less.”

Quigley said she advises her clients not to overspend on college costs, especially now that loan repayment terms are about to get stricter. In July 2026, the Trump administration’s tax and spending law will start to phase out certain income-based student loan repayment plans, replacing them with new plans that will require higher monthly payments for many borrowers. In some cases, borrowers will have to wait 30 years for loan forgiveness, instead of 20 or 25 years under existing plans.

One in six Americans — 43 million people — have student loans, with a total outstanding balance of $1.6 trillion, Congress reported earlier this month. The average student debt for the nearly 2½ million borrowers in New York was about $38,750, the Education Data Initiative reported.

More than 60% of college students said they would be affected by the federal student loan changes, with 35% saying they are considering cutting back on their education, a new survey by U.S. News & World Report found. 

With clients who will be taking out student loans under the new rules, Quigley said, “We try to predict what the payments are going to be and how long it's going to take them to pay it off, and with the uncertainty, that adds a lot of stress.”

Some parents “want to go for those more expensive schools and give their kids the leg up that they think that's going to provide, and those are the people that are really struggling with these decisions,” she said. “I've been encouraging them to take out less, to choose more affordable options.”

In another cause for concern, AI is already overhauling the job search process, she said.

“I was talking to somebody who's a recent graduate, and he got interviewed by three robots this month,” she said. “It asks certain questions, it listens to the answers and moves on to the next question.” It’s unclear if a human being reviews the job applicant’s answers or if the computer decides who advances to the next hiring stage, she said.

Michael Hadjiargyrou, a distinguished professor of biological and chemical sciences at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury, said in the medical field, radiology and pathology are among the specialties where AI is likely to have the biggest impact.

But there’s no way to predict how sophisticated the technology will become or which jobs will be lost, he said.

“Is it going to replace surgeons? Maybe,” he said.

Stony Brook University’s new president, Andrea Goldsmith, who has studied AI, is more optimistic. She said she expects AI to have an overall “huge positive impact” on medicine and other fields.

At the same time, she said, “it may make people more efficient in certain segments of the workforce, which means you don't need as many workers."

Nearly half of U.S. employers are planning to scale back the size of their workforces due to AI, a World Economic Forum report earlier this year found. Entry-level jobs tend to be hit hardest, employers have said. 

Goldsmith said she counsels students to soak up knowledge in a range of disciplines while also pursuing their passions. 

"The more broadly our students are educated, the more prepared they are for their career, not their first job but for their career," she said. 

When students ask her what major they should choose, Goldsmith said, she notes that one reason Apple was so successful was that Steve Jobs took a class in calligraphy, and his computers’ fonts appealed to consumers.

"What parent would say you should take a calligraphy class, because you're going to invent a computer that changes the world using the knowledge from that class?" she said. 

“What I tell young people is, major in what you love … because it will make you happy. It will make you enjoy your education. It will make you embrace your education,” she said. “But take a broad set of classes, and your future will unfold as you define it.”

Newsday's Nicholas Spangler contributed to this story.