China is rapidly redrawing its higher education landscape, replacing more than 12,000 university programmes in arts, humanities, foreign languages and management with courses in artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and robotics over the past five years.
Driven by the race for AI leadership and the need to tackle rising graduate unemployment, Beijing is aligning higher education more closely with labour market demand. Similar shifts are underway globally as AI becomes integral to university curricula.
Should India follow suit? If India's jobs crisis is increasingly a skills crisis, rising demand for AI workers may require a fundamental rethink of what universities teach.
Labour blues
Beijing's decision to phase out thousands of humanities and other low-demand programmes reflects an effort to better align university education with the skills sought by employers as the country grapples with a deepening graduate employment crisis.
Although the labour market has shown signs of improvement, youth unemployment remains elevated. Official data show the urban unemployment rate for 16-24 year olds (excluding students) stood at 15.6% in May 2026, the lowest in 11 months, but still above 14.5% in June 2025.
China's prolonged property downturn has eroded one of the country's largest sources of graduate employment, while weaker domestic demand and regulatory tightening have curbed hiring in technology and real estate. Fields such as arts, humanities, foreign languages, and management, where most programme cuts have been concentrated, are increasingly viewed as outdated or oversaturated, with more than 16% of young people unemployed.
Meanwhile, the rapid expansion of higher education has produced record numbers of graduates, outpacing the creation of high-quality jobs, with 12.2 million students graduating in 2025 and the number expected to rise to 12.7 million in 2026, the largest cohort in the country's history.
Degree doubts
Amid a slowing job market, an increasing number of young Chinese are exploring alternatives to the traditional university pathway. For the second consecutive year, registrations for China's national higher education entrance examination (Gaokao), the gateway to universities across the country, have declined.
The number of applicants fell from a record 13.42 million in 2024 to 13.35 million in 2025, before dropping further to 12.9 million in 2026. While part of the decline reflects China's shrinking youth population, it may also signal changing perceptions about the employment prospects associated with a university degree.
China's graduate employment crisis has weakened the long-held expectation that higher education leads to stable, well-paying jobs. In the absence of adequate formal employment opportunities, growing numbers of graduates are turning to gig work, with food delivery and ride-hailing increasingly serving as fallback options.
Against this backdrop, school-leavers appear to be choosing other pathways instead of immediately entering higher education. Beijing's push to replace low-demand programmes with AI and other industry-oriented disciplines is also an effort to encourage more students to pursue formal higher education.
Talent tussle
Besides reducing the mismatch between university education and labour market demand, China's move to reshape university curricula is also seen as an attempt to gain leadership in the global AI race.
The competition has intensified in recent years, particularly after the rapid rise of DeepSeek, the Chinese startup that stunned the AI industry by releasing a high-performing large language model at a fraction of the cost of leading Western models. Since then, China has accelerated efforts to strengthen its AI ecosystem through greater investment in computing infrastructure and semiconductor self-reliance.
For now, the US leads in the number of notable AI models developed, with China a close second. The US and China have, however, adopted contrasting approaches to the AI race. While American leadership has largely been driven by private technology companies backed by deep venture capital markets, China's strategy relies more heavily on state-led industrial policy and coordinated investments in universities and research institutions.
Yet, both models converge on one fundamental requirement: a steady pipeline of highly skilled AI professionals, including researchers, engineers, mathematicians, computer scientists, chip designers and data specialists.
Similar shift
The growing emphasis on ICT (information and communication technology) education extends well beyond China, with countries across the world expanding programmes to build digital skills. The US remains the world's largest producer of ICT bachelor's graduates, with AI-focused education growing faster than traditional computer science education.
According to Stanford University’s AI Index report 2026, computer science enrolment at US universities declined by 11% between 2024 and 2025. In contrast, the number of master's graduates in AI software-related fields increased by 82% between 2022 and 2024. Among other major economies, Brazil recorded one of the strongest increases in new ICT bachelor's graduates between 2022 and 2023, the latest year for which comparable international data are available. Turkey, France, Spain, Canada, Germany, and the UK also registered notable growth.
Beyond higher education, several countries, including China, Singapore, South Korea, Finland, Estonia, and the UAE, have adopted comprehensive national AI education strategies that integrate AI into school curricula, teacher training, and digital infrastructure. Building an AI-ready talent pipeline has thus become a strategic priority across economies.
Critical choice
Should India follow China's playbook by replacing traditional disciplines with AI, robotics, and other strategic technologies?
For decades, India has grappled with jobless growth, with both a shortage of quality jobs and low employability contributing to the problem. The India Skills Report 2026 finds employability significantly lower among graduates in arts and commerce than among engineers and MBA (master of business administration) graduates. Yet, AI is also expected to automate many routine tasks in technology and management, raising questions about whether expanding AI-related programmes alone will guarantee better employment outcomes.
At the same time, the widespread adoption of AI is likely to raise the premium on skills nurtured by the humanities, including critical thinking, creativity, ethical reasoning and communication. Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran has argued that the promise of conventional degrees is waning and India should place greater emphasis on vocational and trade skills less susceptible to automation. Others advocate a more balanced approach.
Abhay Jere, former vice-chairman of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), in an opinion piece in The Indian Express, suggested that India does not need the death of disciplines but their reinvention through programmes such as digital humanities. Integrating AI across disciplines, rather than replacing them, may therefore offer a more durable path.
Puneet Kumar Arora is an assistant professor of economics at Delhi Technological University. Jaydeep Mukherjee is a professor of economics at Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai.