Called Phi-4, the model improves in several areas over its predecessors, Microsoft claims, particularly in solving math problems. That’s partly the result of better training data quality.

An understanding of how to work with numbers is valuable in fields ranging from government to business to the tech sector, and that is one reason why a math degree is a marketable credential.

It is likely that nearly all of those seniors were taking their fourth consecutive year of math, said Michal Kurlaender, a UC Davis education policy professor who is PACE faculty director. But she ...