Low-demand college courses to be axed this year: Delhi University

Delhi University is mulling plans to close or restructure several low-demand undergraduate programmes. An internal review of admissions, submitted to college principals last week, revealed persistent vacancies in some courses and colleges.

The university identified the programmes with the lowest student response based on the latest, or 2025–26, CUET-based admission trends. This data was compared to the 2019 admission cycle—when DU still followed the Class XII merit-based system—to argue that the current vacancy pattern is due to varying demand over the years, rather than the introduction of CUET, according to ToI.

The university used one to categorize the program "preference-to-seat ratio".

The two courses having the ratio of less than 50 could be discontinued, while courses with the ratio between 50 and 100 may see seats being redistributed. The high demand programmes, with a ratio of more than 200, are being proposed to be expanded. As per the data available, OMSP (Office Management and Secretarial Practice) and many BA programme combinations were in the low demand category.

Colleges have now been asked to review programmes which have received consistently poor admissions and submit a report by Monday. "All colleges have been asked to examine underperforming courses and begin the process of phasing them out," said the principal of a college in the South Campus, on condition of anonymity.

Four colleges - Aditi Mahavidyalaya, Bhagini Nivedita College, Swami Shraddhanand College and Zakir Hussain Evening College-have been cited as examples where the seat fill-up is the lowest and cancellations are the highest. As per the review, Aditi Mahavidyalaya enrolled 606 students against the 1,010 sanctioned seats while Bhagini Nivedita enrolled 359 against its 985 seats. The university said both colleges offer a number of BA programme combinations but offer fewer honours courses.

Another principal present in the meeting revealed that most of the BA programme combinations are no longer attractive to applicants.

"Some colleges have introduced combinations that don't attract students, while they offer no Honours courses at all. They were advised to weed out such combinations and retain only academically meaningful ones," the principal said, as quoted by ToI.

Stream-wise data revealed that commerce courses and a number of BA Honours programmes were in good demand, many of which received applications beyond approved capacity. Language programmes had the least response, with only about 81 per cent of the seats filled - the lowest among all streams. Officials said that restructuring is likely to be implemented from the next academic year forward to simplify the processes and improve seat utilisation.