Are Hong Kong’s universities attracting enough students from outside mainland China?

Data shows nearly 75 per cent of Hong Kong’s non-local, first-year undergraduates at public universities are from mainland

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Data obtained by the Post from the University Grants Committee shows that 5,582 non-local, first-year students were admitted by the city’s eight universities in the 2024-25 academic year. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 8:30am, 10 Mar 2025Updated: 12:17pm, 10 Mar 2025

The proportion of first-year, non-local undergraduates at Hong Kong’s public universities who come from mainland China has increased to 75 per cent, while the percentage of the intake from other countries has fallen after the government doubled the cap on such intakes, raising concerns over whether the city can meet its goal of internationalising its campuses.

Data obtained by the Post from the University Grants Committee (UGC) also showed that 5,582 non-local, first-year students were admitted by the city’s eight universities in the 2024-25 academic year, a 48 per cent increase from the year before.

The figures indicated that the proportion of mainland students among the latest batch had increased by 55 per cent.

Mainland students now accounted for 74 per cent of the city’s pool of non-local, first-year students, up from 71 per cent in 2023-24.

The number of non-local students coming to the city from outside the mainland also increased from 1,111 to 1,463, yet they only represented 26 per cent of the pool, down from 29 per cent.

In his 2023 policy address, Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu said the enrolment ceiling for non-local students at the eight public universities would be doubled from 20 per cent to 40 per cent of places starting from 2024-25.