Between 2021 and 2025, Chinese universities revoked or suspended 12,200 undergraduate programme offerings and introduced around 10,200 new ones.
The cuts fell largely across the arts, humanities, foreign languages and management, while many of the additions aligned with AI, robotics and China's industrial priorities. These included carbon neutrality engineering, marine science and technology, AI education, intelligent audiovisual engineering, and digital drama. Not every new programme was engineering or AI, but technology and national strategy clearly shaped those decisions.
