Mainland Students in Hong Kong Universities:

By Glenn Shive
Director, Hong Kong America Center
June 27, 2005

Twenty years after the one-child policy was put in place, the single children of many urban, newly middle class families have begun to reach college age.  Chinese universities essentially doubled their freshmen intake in the six years between 1998 and 2004, and thus raised the percentage of 18-year olds who study beyond high school to 19%.  Even so, there is still enormous pent-up demand from social/demographic and economic/ manpower sources for university-trained people which the higher education systems in China cannot fulfill. 

By 2000, many young Chinese had both the academic qualifications and the financial resources to go abroad to further their studies.  About 45,000 went abroad for study in 2002.  As the United States recoiled from the 9/11 attacks and raised new barriers to obtaining student visas in China, the ever growing demand for university study abroad in China shifted quickly towards other countries such as Australia, UK, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland and South Africa in search of open visa lines to English-medium higher education.  

In this context, Hong Kong began to realize the potential value of its internationally oriented, English-language university programs in a Chinese social ethos sitting on China’s doorstep. 

HK universities and other providers of tertiary education have recently built new capacity to offer sub-degree programs on self-financed basis.  This was done largely in response to the Government’s initiative to provide 60% of school leavers with further study opportunities by 2010.  The self-financed, sub-degree sector, often managed by the continuing education arms of local universities, has grown faster than initially expected and may be in some areas overbuilt for the domestic demand in HK.  They want to attract mainland students into the associate degree and higher diploma programs on full- or part-time basis.  The new visa policies are likely to swell their numbers.

It may be, however, that mainland students will eschew these programs as relatively high-cost and low-status, or even as “dead-end” degrees.  To attract mainland students, it will be important for sub-degree programs in HK to show they have clear pathways to further study to bachelor degrees and beyond.  This could happen in HK, or in universities abroad that have articulation agreements and top-up degree programs with HK sub-degree programs.   

In recent years, universities in America, Australia and the UK have partnered with universities and other sub-degree providers in HK to offer easy transfer arrangements to the overseas campus for these graduates.  Some universities from the Australia and UK, but generally not from the US and Canada, offer bachelor degree completion programs here in HK for students who cannot go abroad for reasons of cost, work commitments or family responsibilities.  This is partly in response to the decline of HK students prepared to go abroad for full bachelor degree programs.  The top-up programs on offer in HK have attracted associate degree graduates who – if they could afford it - might otherwise have gone abroad to complete bachelor degrees in articulated programs. 

One of the main attractions for mainland students to come to HK for university is to have an international learning experience within a Chinese cultural context.  This includes English-medium instruction by internationally active professors, sharing the campus with students from around the world, and options for post-graduate study in advanced countries such as the US, UK, Australia and Canada.  

Having bright mainland students from all over China on HK campuses is an attraction for international students to come to HK universities on exchanges.  Having international exchange students in HK is also an attraction for mainland students to come to HK.  One group draws the other.  The presence of one group in HK is part of the case to come to HK for the other.  The international connectedness of HK universities is major draw for mainland students.  Only a few elite universities in China have anywhere near the depth and diversity of international ties that reside in HK. 

A greater flow of mainland students into and through HK will bring benefits through long-term social and economic networks that span HK and the mainland.  Mainland student mobility to HK will create enduring cultural and social linkages in the younger generations between HK and the mainland.  More Mandarin will be spoken on HK campuses, and more careers will cross the boundary between HK and the mainland at different stages.  HK will absorb more mainland culture while more young mainlanders will be influenced by HK culture, ideas, media sources and lifestyles.  The HK banking, travel, retail and telecommunication sectors, among others, will benefit directly by more mainland student consumers sojourning in HK, and taking their acquired tastes and consumption habits back to the mainland after graduation.  Many parents of mainland students will come here to visit with pride their sons and daughters at HK universities. 

Longer term, the enhanced talent pool of graduates from increasingly competitive HK universities will benefit a broad range of HK employers for whom human resources will be critical for their competitiveness in China and the world.