Since 1993, HKU started to admit non-local students to enrich the student's community and
help the University evolve into an international university in Asia and around the world.
Admitting non-local students is a global trend and practice for most of the word class
universities. For the universities in Hong Kong, the percentage of intake of admission of non-
local rose from 4% to 10%, and eventually to 20% now. Multiple benefits will be earned from
the admission of non-local students. We can look into the paper presented to the Heads of
Universities Committee Standing Committee on Internationalization (Attached to the booklet). I
guess no one will doubt these reasons which many of us are benefiting from internationalizing
the campus. Thus, the thing we have to discuss here is not whether we should intake non-local
students or not, but the maximum number of non-local students we should admit.
The motion for the Annual Debate is “The maximum intake of non-local applicants to HKU
should be reduced”. Please be reminded that i think we should only look into the
undergraduate students instead of postgraduate students as there is no intake quota for non-
local postgraduate students. Personally, I am against to the motion because of the following
reasons.
Non-local students competing seats with local students?
Firstly, one may say that admission of non-local students will deprive local students of the
opportunity of having tertiary education as non-local students will take away the intake quotas
which are subsidized by the University Grants Committee (UGC). According to current
government policy, institution can only admit non-local students up to 20% of the total intake-
quota subsidized by the UGC, with 4% is included in the intake quota while 16% is not
included in the intake quota. In other words, only 4% of non-local students are under the
intake quota. This will not cause direct competition between local and non-local students as
most of the non-local students are admitted outside the intake quota. In fact, it is fair to give
20% of intake quota for non-local students to ensure the cultural diversity in HKU. The way to
help local students to enjoy tertiary education in Hong Kong is to increase the total intake
quota subsidized by UGC.
Non-local students eating up resources from taxpayers?
Secondly, it is claimed that the non-local students are eating up the resources from Hong
Kong's taxpayers as they are subsidizing the university seats. Reducing the number of intake
of non-locals seems to be a way to avoid resources spent on outsiders. Yet, it is just a part of
the story when we look into the figures. Currently, the cost for a unit of undergraduate is
around $225,000 per year. The tuition fee for local students is around $40,000, which is
subsidized by UGC while it is around $135,000 (raised from $10,000 to $13,500 in 2013) for
non-local students. True, both local and non-local students are subsidized by the UGC (money
from taxpayers) in different level. Yet, we cannot overlook the positive externalities brought by
the non-local students to the local student's community. The benefits can be shown in the attached papers.
The way to solve the current phenomenon is to raise the tuition fee of non-local students
rather than cutting the maximum intake quota. Still, it is critical to strike a balance between
maintaining competitiveness and covering the cost. Taking other prominent universities
among Asia as reference, Studying in Hong Kong is the second cheapest option (Around
$540,000 for a Bachelor Degree) compared to other countries such as Singapore (Around
$836,000), Japan (Around $797,000), Malaysia (Around $545,000) etc. This shows that HKU
still has room to raise our tuition fees to cover the cost paid from the taxpayers as the low
price position and its academic excellence in Asia. One practical way is to charge different
tuition fee for different courses according to their costs. For example, the cost for the two
degrees of MBBS is higher compared to other degrees such as Arts, Social Sciences. It is
reasonable to charge higher to non-local students for the costly degrees. We can also charge
higher price for those competitive degrees.
Recommendation
In fact, instead of reducing the maximum of intake of non-local, we should provide more
supporting facility, both software and hardware, such as teaching staff, lecture rooms, hostels
etc to accommodate the increase of non-local students. The newly built Residential College and
Centennial Campus relieved the increase of students' population in HKU. Also, two more
Residential Hall/College will be built in Mui Fong Street and Hospital Road in 2017 which will
provide around 400 places.
Another thing has to improve is the proportion of overseas students to mainland students.
According to the University goals, it is to admit 50% of the non-local undergraduate students
from Mainland China, and 50% from other parts of the world. This goal is to maintain a
diverse group of non-local students. However, referring to the Appendix I, we can see that the
percentages of overseas students to mainland students for recent four years are 61% (2010),
58% (2011), 65% (2012) and 61% (2013). HKU still cannot reach its goal for the past few
years. It is understandable that HKU is not that attractive compared with other world class
universities in the United States and United Kingdom. Overseas non-local students with
excellent academic performance might not take HKU as their first choice. On the other hand,
most of the top mainland students will choose HKU as their first choice as HKU is one of the
best universities in Asia. This results in the failure of reaching the university's goal. In fact, it is
still a long way for HKU to attract top overseas non-local students to study in HKU. Some
general suggestion like increasing the provision of scholarship, having more comprehensive
facilities such as more hostels and classrooms, having a more competitive degree (both price
and quality) etc. Unless HKU becomes a genuine world class university in the world which
performs excellently in both teaching and learning and researching, HKU still has to intake a
greater number of mainland students in order to maintain the highest academic standards.
Conclusion
We should not deny the positive externalities brought by internationalization by admission of
non-local students. It is not a healthy situation for an international university like HKU to
reducing the maximum intake of non-local students. With no doubt, the current policy is not
perfect. Yet, there are many other measures as mentioned above to improve the situation. I
believe that, in order to establish a genuine cultural diversity in HKU, HKSAR government,
HKU and all students have to work together hardly.
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