Popular majors are constantly changing to align with market demands. Photo: TUCHONG

Recently, many colleges and universities have announced plans to eliminate or introduce academic majors. For instance, Sichuan University (SCU) plans to eliminate 31 majors in 2024, while Northeast Forestry University (NEFU) and Ningbo University (NBU) have also made public their proposed undergraduate major cancellations for 2024. These moves have attracted much attention from academia.

Changing patterns

With the rapid development of technology and changes in market demands, the landscape of popular majors is constantly evolving. According to the SCU notice, the majors to be withdrawn span multiple fields, including science and engineering, the humanities, and arts. Many other universities have also issued similar notifications. NEFU plans to abolish both its International Chinese Education and Information Management and Information Systems programs, while Tiangong University intends to cancel the majors of Mechanical Design, Manufacturing, and Automation as well as Architectural Environment and Energy Application Engineering. NBU plans to discontinue the majors of Urban and Rural Planning, Humanities Education, and Marine Resources and Environment, while Lanzhou University aims to cancel the majors of Pharmaceutical Formulation, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Education.

This phenomenon reflects a profound structural adjustment within the higher education system. In April 2023, a reform plan for the adjustment and optimization of majors and programs in higher education was issued by the Ministry of Education and four other departments. The plan specifies that by 2025, the structure of majors and programs in higher education will be more coordinated and distinctive, featuring an improved optimization and adjustment mechanism. This reform aims to optimize and adjust about 20% of academic disciplines in colleges and universities, adding a range of new majors that align with emerging technologies, industries, and business models, while phasing out those that do not adapt to socio-economic development. At the same time, the proportion of undergraduate majors in science and basic medicine will be further increased to comprehensively improve the quality of independent talent training and build a high-quality higher education system.

Han Zhen, director of the academic committee of Beijing Normal University, explained that most specialties being withdrawn are either those that do not align with the university’s educational characteristics and strengths, or that have narrow disciplinary knowledge, including some previously popular majors. Fields that were once highly sought after, such as management and foreign languages, have seen an oversaturation due to various universities blindly following trends, resulting in an excess of academic programs disconnected from societal needs and leading to a surplus of graduates exceeding market demands.

Zhou Guangli, dean of the School of Education at Renmin University of China, noted that the popularity of academic disciplines and employment trends are constantly evolving. He emphasized that educational institutions should not be guided solely by immediate societal demands, nor should they hastily decide to cancel certain programs based on short-term fluctuations. Colleges and universities should update and adjust their majors in consideration of historical contexts while exploring sustainable development pathways that adhere to the principles of social progress.

Wang Shutao, deputy director of the Institute of Education at Xiamen University, explained the two main reasons why universities are withdrawing certain majors. First, these decisions are in response to evolving societal needs. With economic development and adjustments in industrial structures, traditional job positions are decreasing while new positions in emerging industries are increasing, prompting colleges and universities to adjust their major offerings and eliminate those which offer limited employment prospects. Second, the cancellation of certain programs is aimed at integrating and optimizing educational resources. By doing so, universities can concentrate resources on developing more promising majors, thereby enhancing education quality and operational efficiency.

New trends

According to the 2024 undergraduate majors directory of colleges and universities released by the Ministry of Education, 24 new majors have been added to serve the strategic needs of the country. With the increasing demand for cultivating new quality productive forces, there is a growing urgency for interdisciplinary integration and the convergence of multi-field technologies in talent development. This adjustment has further highlighted the significance of cross-disciplinary integration by adding new majors such as Interdisciplinary Engineering, Health Science and Technology, and Soft Matter Science and Engineering.

Various sources indicate that engineering majors, such as Computer Science and Technology, Software Engineering, Electronic Information Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence, continue to rank among the most popular programs. The rising popularity of these majors is closely related to the current development trend of the digital economy, technological progress, and industrial upgrading. Zhou introduced that at present, China’s industrial development creates a strong demand for talent in computer science and other science and engineering fields, leading to a continuous rise in employment rates for these majors. However, in the long run, developed economies predominantly feature high-end service industries, with over 50% of their industries falling into this category. These sectors exhibit a large demand for talent in the humanities and social sciences, suggesting that the vitality or value of a major should not be evaluated solely based on current demand.

With the wide application of AI technology, AI-based interdisciplinary majors have garnered wide attention. In Han’s view, advancements in the field of modern information technology, the internet, and particularly AI have brought about new changes in the form of knowledge, which is characterized by multi-disciplinary overlapping. Future academic disciplines will further embody the principle of interdisciplinary knowledge, which is precisely the driving force behind the development of emerging fields such as new engineering, new medical sciences, new agricultural sciences, and new liberal arts.

Notably, some universities have merely rebranded existing niche programs under the guise of “discipline +,” claiming them to be interdisciplinary, but with no fundamental change to their teaching plans and faculty development. In this regard, Zhou suggested that the establishment of interdisciplinary majors should first clarify training objectives—what type of talent society needs and what kind of students universities should cultivate—to better align with societal demands. Once training objectives are established, universities should further refine and support these goals through developing modular courses. Only by systematically adjusting course content can we truly build interdisciplinary majors.