With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) and changes in the situation, professions that were once “hot” in mainland China are now facing serious challenges, with some universities ceasing to enroll students or canceling foreign language-related majors.
According to a report by “The First Financial”, in recent years, many universities have successively stopped enrollment or canceled undergraduate foreign language majors, including prestigious universities such as Henan University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Southwest Jiaotong University.
Data from the “Results of Approval and Filing of Undergraduate Majors in Regular Higher Education Institutions by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China from 2018 to 2022” show that at least 101 undergraduate institutions have canceled foreign language majors in the past five years.
Recently, several universities have made adjustments or stopped enrolling foreign language majors, such as Jingdezhen Ceramic University establishing a College of Cultural Communication based on the original School of Foreign Languages, bringing attention to the future prospects of foreign language majors once again.
According to the Dawan News report, there are two main considerations for some universities to cancel foreign language majors. Firstly, in recent years, there has been an oversupply of talent in foreign language-related fields due to the previous trend of oversaturation.
Data shows that in 2013, 70 universities in China added Business English majors and 46 universities introduced Translation majors. By July 2025, out of 1308 undergraduate colleges nationwide, more than three-quarters (984 schools) offered English majors, making it the most widely offered major among all disciplines.
It was reported that the rush to offer English majors led to a lack of quality assurance in some schools, turning what was once a popular choice into a less desirable option for employment.
The second reason is the rapid development of AI, which requires universities to optimize and adjust majors, and innovate talent training models. Some netizens believe that AI translation is already capable of directly interpreting foreign documents, videos, and facilitating travel, rendering human translation unnecessary.
However, an opinion piece by “The Beijing News” argues that even if AI translation becomes highly efficient, it still cannot adapt and perceive emotions in communication as well as humans can. Therefore, the decision of many universities to stop enrolling foreign language majors does not mean the end of language learning; rather, it signals a need for a transition to a teaching model aimed at cultivating “precise replicators”. In the new situation, foreign language learning should focus on practical application, with this “application” needing to reach higher dimensions and broader scopes.