China cuts 12,000 university programmes to shift focus to AI and tech

Between 2021 and 2025 China’s Ministry of Education scrapped or suspended roughly 12,200 undergraduate degree programmes, affecting more than 30% of the country’s university offerings. The overhaul targets fields such as arts, humanities, foreign languages and management, which authorities view as oversupplied or misaligned with economic priorities. At the same time, about 10,200 new programmes have been introduced, concentrating on artificial intelligence, robotics, integrated‑circuit design, smart manufacturing and other technology‑driven disciplines. The reforms are driven by a graduate unemployment rate that has risen above 16% and by Beijing’s goal to align higher education with its AI‑centric industrial strategy. New majors like embodied intelligence aim to embed advanced AI into physical systems, reflecting the government’s “future industries” agenda.