In China, the ratio of humanities students to non-humanities students is significantly high. Compared to Japan's 1.4 and Germany's 1.8, China's ratio is only 1.2, while the US has already reached 2.1.
Over the past ten years, the number of humanities students in the US has drastically declined, with the expansion of computer science programs exceeding the entire humanities field. Meanwhile, many of China's new vocational schools and upgraded colleges tend to quickly expand enrollment through humanities programs.
China's universities mainly rely on government funding, while the establishment and enrollment of majors in US universities are greatly influenced by the market. The Ministry of Education has repeatedly called for key expansion in graduate majors such as clinical medicine, integrated circuits, and artificial intelligence, but universities have failed to respond.
University presidents are also helpless because changing existing quotas is difficult, and they can only have flexible control over incremental quotas while balancing various disciplines.
Countries like the UK and the US typically use data from three to five years after graduation when calculating university employment rates. In China, however, they primarily use data from initial employment, exacerbating short-term thinking and employment rate fraud among universities. The excessive expansion of humanities majors also shows that China's universities lack responsibility for student employment.
The imbalance in academic majors is causing a growing concern in China. The demand for non-humanities professionals is increasing, but the supply of humanities graduates remains disproportionately high. This creates a pressing need for Chinese universities to reconsider their priorities and realign their academic programs to meet the changing demands of the job market. If they fail to do so, the overabundance of humanities graduates may lead to a decline in overall economic growth, negatively affecting the country's future development.