Exclusive | Hong Kong’s education chief vows university fee increases will be gradual and take students’ finances into account
- Parents, students receive minister’s assurance that government will consider financial impact of fee rise
- It might take ‘four or five years’ for universities to reach new 40 per cent target for non-local students, Secretary for Education Christine Choi says
Hong Kong’s education minister has pledged that planned increases in university tuition fees will be carried out gradually, taking into account the financial burden on students.
Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin said the government would adopt a “very pragmatic” approach when phasing in the rise in bachelor’s degree fees at the city’s eight publicly funded universities.
“We will not aggressively increase the fees in one go,” she told the Post in a wide-ranging interview. “We will consider Hong Kong’s economic situation and the affordability for families and the young. It should be done gradually for them to afford it.”
Undergraduates at the eight universities currently pay HK$42,100 (US$5,380) annually, an amount that has been frozen for 27 years. According to the University Grants Committee, which allocates funding to the universities, the cost recovery rate slipped from 18 per cent in the 2012-13 financial year to 13.3 per cent in 2022-23.
But a rise in fees appears unlikely to occur before the 2025-26 academic year at the earliest.
Choi also said a new target for admitting more non-locals at public universities might take four to five years to achieve.