The University of Hong Kong has set up a new liberal education college to offer self-financed degree programmes that will cost local students up to HK$92,000 a year.
The privately funded Centennial College will be among the city's most expensive. But Linus Cheung Wing-lam, chairman of the board of governors, said its tuition fees were competitive against overseas institutions. Touting the college as a good-quality option, Cheung said parents often had to pay much more to send their children overseas.
He expected an uphill battle to seek the best students and teachers, given that the two degree programmes it would offer at the start charged up to twice same-standard courses provided by government-subsidised universities, where, he said, the fees were too low.
Annual tuition fees for degree programmes at government-funded universities are about HK$42,000.
'The students we select may not be the best ones at the beginning,' he said, 'but it doesn't mean they can't be more successful than students of HKU or the University of Science and Technology.'
Centennial College opens in September on the Pok Fu Lam campus of HKU. It will take in 700 to 800 students in all for its two four-year bachelor degree courses, in arts and accounting. Annual tuition fees for secondary school graduates are HK$82,000, while subdegree holders, who can enter the college at the third year, pay HK$92,000. A college spokesmen said charges for overseas students had not been determined.
Cheung said the college management had tried to lower the costs, but it had to balance teaching standards with affordability.