In the midst of Chinese university students facing the dilemma of “graduation means unemployment,” the news of Sichuan University planning to “cut off” 31 majors has sparked discussions. Netizens lament the fate of these once-popular majors facing revocation, some attributing it to changes in the job market and criticizing the school for being impatient for quick results.
On July 12, multiple mainland Chinese media reported that the Sichuan University Academic Affairs Office disclosed the details of the professional adjustments for the year 2024. It was mentioned that after college applications, expert consultations, evaluations by the school’s academic committee, and approval by the school council, for the year 2024 the school plans to apply for one new major, prepare for five new majors, and revoke 31 majors.
Among the majors planned for revocation are: musicology, performing arts, animation, insurance, broadcasting and television, information management and information systems, public administration, e-commerce, applied physics, nuclear physics, biotechnology, materials physics, materials chemistry, metallurgical engineering, inorganic non-metallic materials engineering, electronic science and technology, electronic information science and technology, classified management, industrial design, network engineering, architecture environment and energy application engineering, environmental science, urban and rural planning, engineering cost, landscape architecture, hydraulic and hydropower engineering, hydrology and water resources engineering, textile engineering, metallurgical engineering, safety engineering, and information security.
It is reported that Sichuan University covers disciplines such as arts, sciences, engineering, medicine, economics, management, law, history, philosophy, agriculture, education, and arts, with 37 discipline-specific colleges and overseas education colleges. Among the majors planned for revocation, disciplines such as classified management, nuclear physics, applied physics, information security, musicology, and network engineering have stopped enrollment previously.
Additionally, there are majors at Sichuan University like drama and film literature, nuclear chemical engineering and nuclear fuel engineering, and clothing design and engineering that are being revoked due to no enrollment for several years.
Sichuan University’s plans for introducing a new major are in biomass technology and engineering. There are also five majors in preparation: classical Chinese studies, intelligent information engineering, intelligent construction, intelligent engineering, creative design, and medical equipment engineering.
The simultaneous revocation of 31 undergraduate majors by Sichuan University is rare, leaving many netizens to reflect:
– “How many of these majors were established when they were popular?”
– “Many of the revoked majors were once ‘hot majors’.”
– “The revoked majors are also majors that are not recruited in civil service examinations.”
– “Shouldn’t Journalism be revoked at Sichuan University?”
– “Civil engineering is completely gone?”
– “What majors are left in the materials school? Polymer and material forming?”
– “When will English be revoked?”
– “A list of majors with a red flag for employment.”
– “Ten years ago, more than half of them were popular majors, but now they are directly revoked.”
– “Wasn’t biotechnology a sunrise major in the 21st century? Why was it also revoked?”
Regarding majors prefixed with “intelligent” in the preparatory majors, netizens commented: “Intelligent construction is essentially the original civil engineering, and intelligent engineering and creative design are an addition of language programs to architecture.”
Some believe that this action by Sichuan University reflects the utilitarian nature of higher education institutions, where resources are spent more on meeting market demands rather than researching basic disciplines. It is seen as a move to compete with vocational schools. “What’s the reason? Is it impatience for quick results?”
According to self-media “Yuxue Essay,” the revocation of these majors falls into several categories: some majors have been completely eliminated by the market, with graduates unable to find jobs, such as e-commerce, public administration, urban and rural planning, broadcasting and television, among others. These majors are effectively in a state of natural extinction. Some engineering majors are revoked due to professional adjustments and mergers, such as the nuclear physics major, which Sichuan University has reclassified as nuclear engineering and nuclear technology.
With Sichuan University planning to revoke a large number of majors, these changes come at a time when Chinese university students are facing job market challenges upon graduation.
Official data show that in 2024, the number of Chinese college graduates reached 11.79 million, hitting a historic high again. According to the Zhaopin Recruitment Platform’s “2024 University Graduate Employment Power Research Report” released in May, as of mid-April, only 48% of graduates had received informal employment notifications, a worse situation compared to the previous year.
On July 4, Voice of America cited a Guangzhou university teacher revealing that the employment rate of their college graduates was around 45% by the end of June, though she did not directly see the data for the entire school, suggesting it was likely at a similar level.
Japanese political commentator Li Yiming previously told The Epoch Times that the Chinese Communist Party’s education system has been irrational for decades, especially around 2000, during the tenure of Jiang Zemin and the then Minister of Education Chen Zhili, where educational industrialization was pushed. “Many universities expanded enrollment dramatically, schools started upgrading, secondary vocational schools became higher education institutions, polytechnic colleges upgraded to offer undergraduate programs. This resulted in a decline in the training of many professional technical workers.”
He analyzed that China does not have enough high-tech companies to absorb highly educated individuals, and the lower-level technical industry lacks sufficient skilled workers. Hence, vocational schools are more likely to find employment than regular schools, due to these reasons. In Germany, students are differentiated by technical schools and regular universities at high school graduation in about equal proportions.
Li Yiming believes that the employment difficulties faced by young people are a consequence of the intrinsic problems in the CCP’s education system, compounded by the declining economy, sluggish real estate market, and departure of foreign companies.
The youth unemployment rate in China, encompassing individuals aged 16 to 24, has been steadily rising since last year, reaching a record high of 21.3% in June of last year, significantly higher than similar indicators in major Western countries. In July last year, Beijing University professor Zhang Dandan calculated that the actual youth unemployment rate in China was as high as 46.5%.
In an attempt to cover up the rising unemployment, the Chinese Statistics Bureau announced the suspension of youth unemployment rate data including students in mid-August 2023. By mid-January 2024, the statistics bureau reissued the youth unemployment rate excluding students, which was only 14.9%, criticized by outsiders as an attempt to conceal the truth.