UGM Academic: Removing Irrelevant Study Programmes at Universities Is a Short-Sighted Decision

YOGYAKARTA — Wisnu Setiadi Nugroho, economist at the Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FEB UGM), said that the government’s plan to close a number of study programmes not relevant to the economy’s needs is a decision that ignores future dynamics. He argued that higher education is not a job-training facility.

‘Higher education is not an extra job-training facility for industry. Closing study programmes simply because they do not align with the market’s taste today is a short-sighted decision that ignores future dynamics,’ Wisnu said in a statement in Yogyakarta on Friday.

According to Wisnu, universities should not function as factories producing workers to order, but as institutions that shape people with the ability to think, adapt, and create.

Universities, he said, should once again become a compass that guides civilisation, not merely a weather vane that turns with the direction of the economy.

‘If we keep enforcing market logic as the sole measure of relevance, what is produced will not be a generation ready to face the future, but a generation trained for the past,’ he said.

Wisnu added that policies to close study programmes with few takers or not relevant to industry do not stop at economic aspects. Delegating the direction of higher education entirely to the market means neglecting the social and political functions of campuses.