In China the global challenges of fast-evolving technology and multidisciplinary studies are complicated by the newness of the market. Only 40 years ago, professors were condemned to manual labor if suspected of capitalist sympathies, and most universities were shut down during the decade-long Cultural Revolution. The government is preoccupied with ensuring that China's growing pool of college graduates finds jobs; about 23 percent of the 6.5 million who graduated in 2011 are still out of work. Government leaders regularly promise action. In the past five years, the Ministry of Education has been instructing universities to scrap majors in which fewer than half of their students find jobs. And a growing patchwork of policies seeks to cement relationships between industry and academe, modernize curricula, and improve teaching. The author reports on how universities struggle to keep pace with economic and technological changes in the wake of China's quickening economy.