The U. S. Government announced earlier to tighten the legal status of foreign students, foreign students face the risk of losing visas.
Hong Kong Sing Tao Daily Secretary for Education Elaine Choy said in a radio interview that due to the impact of the changing international situation, higher education in Hong Kong has ushered in new opportunities, the trend of overseas students studying in Hong Kong has increased significantly. In particular, the U.S. restricts student visas, which makes students face instability in studying abroad. Parents of overseas students choose to arrange their children to study in Hong Kong, and Hong Kong students have also reduced their study in the United States. She said that Hong Kong universities attract many overseas students by virtue of their international and diversified teaching environment and the advantages of bilingualism and trilingualism. Since the quota was relaxed to 40 per cent for non-local students at the Big Eight institutions, there has been a sharp increase in the number of such students, “Reflecting the strong demand for Hong Kong education from international students”. There have been no cases of political problems affecting academic exchanges in Hong Kong universities. The proportion of local, overseas and mainland staff remains at about 1/3 each, and will not change much in the next 10 years.
Ms Choy stressed that in order to avoid the shortage affecting students’ learning experience, the government plans to increase the number of places in the coming years. It is expected that about 13,000 places will be added from 2027 to 2028, and explore the public-private partnership model to solve the problem of accommodation to meet the needs of non-local students. To further attract overseas students, the Hong Kong Education Bureau will work with the eight universities to jointly recruit overseas students, and promote the brand of studying in Hong Kong to Europe, the United States, ASEAN and“Belt and Road” countries.