Record 24 per cent jump in number of students leaving Hong Kong’s government-funded universities in past academic year

Total of 2,212 students out of 85,000 full-time undergraduates left university during 2020-21, up sharply from 1,779 recorded year before

The number of departures is the highest since 2003, the earliest year for which figures are available

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The University of Hong Kong in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 11:35pm, 21 Jan 2022

The number of students who quit their studies at Hong Kong’s eight government-funded universities in the last academic year jumped by a record 24 per cent over the year before, official figures show.

The exodus broadly aligns with a larger pattern of emigration observed among some middle-class residents who left for Western countries such as Britain, Canada and Australia, many of them lured by pathways to citizenship created in the wake of the imposition of the national security law.

The University Grants Committee, which distributes government money to public institutions of higher education, on Friday revealed the latest figures for the number of students who discontinued their studies in the 2020-21 academic year.

Baptist University in Kowloon Tong. Photo: Nora Tam

A total of 2,212 students, or 2.6 per cent of about 85,000 full-time undergraduates in these programmes, left university during that period, up sharply from the 1,779, or 2.1 per cent of the total, recorded the year before.

The number of departures is the highest since 2003, which is the earliest year for which the figures are available.

The institution that lost the most students was the leading University of Hong Kong (HKU), where 445 students (2.6 per cent) dropped out, compared with 343 (2 per cent) in 2019-20. HKU has been approached for comment.

Chinese University, another highly ranked tertiary institution in the city, had 398 students (2.3 per cent) leave, up from 305 students (1.7 per cent) the year before.

But Baptist University suffered the biggest reduction in the size of its student body, with 3.1 per cent (217 students) of undergrads leaving, up from 2.3 per cent (156 students) in the previous year, marking the first time the dropout rate at a Hong Kong university exceeded 3 per cent.