For young Hongkongers, the smartest investment in the future may be going to a top Chinese university

The recent college admissions scandal in the United States has raised soul-searching questions about elite education. Why the obsession with elite universities? Well, the world is just getting more competitive. While a college education used to be a ticket to the middle class, its value has decreased as higher education becomes more prevalent. A degree from a brand-name college is one way to distinguish one student from the rest.

Asian culture may have something to do with this. Stuyvesant, a highly selective public high school in New York City whose students enter top universities, is dominated by Asian-Americans. Asian immigrants, driven by a strong work ethic and high parental expectations, are going to the best universities. So much so that Harvard has been accused in a lawsuit of using racial balancing against Asian-American applicants, by rating them lower on personality traits.

In Asia, greater importance is placed on entry into a top university. In Japan, most elite Ministry of International Trade and Industry bureaucrats during the high-growth years were graduates of the University of Tokyo. In South Korea, one’s social status, career opportunities and even marriage prospects are shaped by acceptance at one of the so-called SKY universities: Seoul National, Korea or Yonsei.

Human resource development: graduates become higher-skilled workers. This remains true for certain professions requiring years of rigorous, sometimes hands-on, training – such as medicine. Otherwise, online education platforms are democratising higher education. They make it possible to learn what is being taught at Harvard and MIT free of charge, without ever setting foot in Cambridge, Massachusetts.