Talk Around Town: Universities Are Racing to Offer AI Minors, Manhattan U Claims It's Joining In

What the Chatter Is About

Well, slap a diploma on a catfish and call it a scholar — American universities are rolling out AI minors faster than a county fair runs out of funnel cake. Manhattan University says it is joining the stampede, according to the school's own September 2025 press release, which describes the institution as developing new undergraduate and graduate programs in areas including artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, and analytics. That press release, per Manhattan University's own communications, also says all incoming first-year students will be required to take a 'Fundamentals of AI' course and can earn IBM SkillsBuild credentials in AI, cybersecurity, and data analytics. The university says the AI minor is part of a broader package of initiatives aimed at boosting student outcomes — but that description comes straight from the school's own marketing barn, not from any independent journalist who knocked on the door and looked around.

What Is Actually Confirmed Across the Country

Now, the wider trend ain't just smoke from somebody's back-forty — it's a genuine five-alarm brush fire. Cornell's Bowers College of Computing and Information Science confirmed in April 2024 that undergraduates could begin an AI minor starting Fall 2024, built around four core Foundations of AI courses covering machine learning, reasoning, human-AI interaction, and ethics and governance, plus two electives drawn from a pool of nearly 50 options.

Penn State's university news office confirmed in August 2025 that the school launched an AI engineering minor that fall, which the university describes as equipping students with core AI techniques and tools so they can apply those methods within their own major disciplines — particularly computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering, according to Penn State. New York Tech's program page documents an AI minor that launched in Spring 2025, designed, the school says, to meet growing employer demand.

The University of Michigan's CSE Division confirmed a technical AI minor beginning Winter 2026, while The Michigan Daily — an independent student newspaper — separately reported that Michigan's School of Information had already launched its own human-centered AI minor in Fall 2025, with a focus on ethics, risks, and societal impact rather than pure technical chops. Texas A&M's Mays Business School announced an 'AI and Business' minor for Fall 2025, open to juniors and seniors in all majors and covering generative AI, machine learning, multimodal AI agents, and deep learning, according to the business school's own announcement.

What Remains Unverified About Manhattan University's Claims

Here's where the hound dog loses the scent, y'all. Every single detail about Manhattan University's AI minor — the curriculum, the credit hours, the faculty leading it, the launch date, and whether a fully designed program even exists yet — comes exclusively from Manhattan University's own press release. The university's language, per that release, describes the programs as still being 'developed,' which leaves a gap wide enough to drive a combine harvester through. No independent newspaper, no trade publication, no higher-education reporter has yet taken a flashlight into that barn and confirmed what's actually in there.

The September 2025 Manhattan University announcement, which is the sole source for these program details, bundles the AI minor alongside a pile of other initiatives in a single press release. That's not evidence the minor is fake — plenty of real programs get born that way — but it does mean readers ought to keep their boots on the skeptical side of the fence until somebody outside the university verifies the specifics.

The Disagreement Nobody's Talking Enough About

Even among the confirmed programs, there's a genuine philosophical mud-wrestle going on about what an AI minor ought to be. Michigan's School of Information, as reported by The Michigan Daily, is explicitly framing its minor around human-centered design, ethics, and societal risk — the kind of curriculum that asks students to slow down and think before they let the machine loose on the henhouse. That's a fundamentally different animal from Penn State's engineering-heavy approach, which, according to Penn State, was designed from the ground up rather than assembled from existing courses with a fresh coat of AI paint.

Michigan Tech's curriculum proposal cited the World Economic Forum's 2025 Future of Jobs Report, which projects that AI and big data analysis will rank among the most sought-after technical skills by 2030 — and that forecast is the locomotive pulling most of these programs down the track. But whether the destination is 'build the AI' or 'understand what AI does to society' depends entirely on which school is driving the train.

Analysis: A Real Trend With One Unverified Caboose

This is analysis, not reporting: the national wave of AI minors is as real as a summer drought in Alabama. Multiple independently structured institutions — some confirmed by independent student journalism, some by university news offices with institutional accountability — have documented genuine program launches across 2024, 2025, and 2026. The labor market pressure driving them, cited by sources like the World Economic Forum's jobs report, gives the trend a plausible and well-documented engine.

Manhattan University's claimed entry into this wave is, as analysis, entirely plausible given the environment — a smaller Catholic institution in the New York metro area has every competitive reason to chase the same credential that flagship research universities are packaging. But plausible ain't the same as verified, and the publication's view is that the Manhattan announcement should sit in the 'interesting if true' pasture until an independent reporter saddles up and rides out there to check the fence line. Until then, the school's own press release is doing all the talking, and press releases have been known to describe the hog before it's fully grown.