South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education Ju-Ho Lee said: “We are proud that Seoul has been recognised as the best student city in the world. This achievement reflects the global confidence in Korea’s higher education system and highlights Seoul’s ability to blend academic excellence with vibrant culture, cutting-edge innovation, and a safe, welcoming environment.”

The QS ranking evaluates 150 cities across 58 countries and territories. The US and UK are the most represented, with 16 cities each, and, historically, cities in those two leading study destinations, along with those in Europe, have dominated the table.

Not so in 2026, however. Joining top-ranked Seoul are Tokyo (#2), Singapore (#11), Kuala Lumpur (#12), Beijing (#13), Taipei (#14), and Hong Kong (#17). Beijing and Taipei were the biggest movers at the top of the table, gaining 18 and 12 spots respectively since the 2025 ranking and entering the top 20 for the first time.

“There has been significant movement among the top 20 cities,” says QS. “Now, 10 of the top 20 cities are in Asia Pacific, highlighting the regionā€™s increased influence on global higher education.” As we see in the following chart, that total includes long-standing, high-profile destinations in the region, such as Melbourne and Sydney, but we also see rapid gains for other major centres, notably Taipei and Beijing. That movement up the ranking table reflects the strength of the higher education institutions in each city, but also that a number of these destinations are also scoring higher in the QS ranking for factors such as “student mix” (which reflects the proportion of the student population in each city compared to total population) and affordability.

On the important question of cost, QS adds that, “While the top cities excel in many of our indicators, affordability is a persistent challenge. Low affordability may lead to international students looking outside the big four destinations or staying in their home country. Londonā€™s declining affordability was a significant driver in it losing its top spot.” A related comment from echoes the point, noting that, “The cost of living in London remains a growing concern for prospective students. While the city continues to offer a wealth of academic and professional opportunities, rising rent, transport, and living costs have lessened its appeal relative to more affordable alternatives.”

The 2026 city rankings also reflect the growing strength ā€“ and ambition ā€“ of study destinations across Asia. Japan, for example hosted more than 336,000 students in 2024, growing 21% from the year before. South Korea’s foreign student population reached 208,000 in 2023 (24% growth year-over-year) against a national goal to attract 300,000 students by 2027. Taiwan welcomed 125,000 visiting students in 2024 but wants to reach 320,000 by 2030, and Malaysia aims to host 250,000 students as of this year.

For additional background, please see:

• “South Korea on track to attract thousands more international students within the decade“
• “Beyond the Big Four: How demand for study abroad is shifting to destinations in Asia and Europe“
• “Global survey underscores demand shift from ‘Big Four’ to ‘Big Ten’“

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Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea continue to attract greater interest, and each is recording significant gains in Q2 amidst continued policy disruption and/or visa delays in other major destinations.

Drawing on student search data from its web properties, Keystone reports that interest in these four “Asian Tiger” destinations grew by 19% between March and June 2025.

Within that broader trend:

• Student interest in Hong Kong grew by 125% quarter-over-quarter
• Singapore saw a 33% increase in search volumes over the same period, indicating, Keystone says, “the country’s successful efforts to brand itself as an affordable yet high-quality education destination”
• South Korea was also singled out in Keystone’s annual State of Student Recruitment Report, having entered the table of top ten destinations for the first time ever

“When combined, the four Asian Tigers are currently more popular amongst searching audience than Japan and China,” adds Keystone. “Data shows that the Asian Tigers are attracting students from across the Asia-Pacific region, with students from India most interested, followed by Indonesia.”

The growing popularity of these — and other — destinations in Asia, can be attributed to investment in higher education and in initiatives to promote regional mobility. Keystone adds, “Their location also offers easy access for Asiaā€™s growing middle-class population seeking quality international education closer to home.”

In a related development, Keystone is also reporting strong growth in interest for destinations in the Middle East, and especially in the United Arab Emirates. Overall search volumes for the region were up 90% between March and June 2025, with the UAE accounting for about two-thirds of that surge. Of particular note to recruiters the world over, Indian students are the leading source of that Middle East-focused search traffic as well.

For additional background, please see:

• “New analysis forecasts international student mobility through 2030“
• “Global survey underscores demand shift from ‘Big Four’ to ‘Big Ten’“
• “Student mobility in MENA boosted by foreign partnerships and branch campuses“
• “Beyond the Big Four: How demand for study abroad is shifting to destinations in Asia and Europe“
• “Closer to home: Intra-regional mobility in Asia“

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However, a new report from real estate services firm JLL Hong Kong makes the point that the territory also needs to seriously factor an expansion of student housing in those plans. projects that non-local enrolment in Hong Kong higher education will reach 92,000 by 2027/28, up nearly 50% from 2022/23. Much of that growth will because, “Hong Kong is drawing increasingly more students from mainland China and across the globe,” as home to five of the world’s top 100 universities, and, JLL expects, it will attract increasing private investment in expanding student housing stock.

JLL estimates that 37,200 non-local students currently opt for private housing during their studies ā€“ a figure that is projected to grow to nearly 60,000 within the next four years.

The following graphic illustrates the current (2022/23) and projected breakdown of non-local enrolment by housing type, and indicates an estimated shortfall of more than 22,000 student beds by 2027/28.

That growing demand on available housing stock, and the looming housing crunch that it suggests, is in turn fuelling real upward pressure on rental rates.

ā€œRental prices in Y83, the largest private student accommodation in the city, recorded an annual growth rate of over 10% since 2022. We observed that the rents of private student accommodation are soaring at an accelerated pace in the last 12 months and reached 15%, the highest [rate of increase yet],” said JLL’s Head of Capital Markets Oscar Chan. “Residential rents have increased by 7.0% since the borders reopening in early 2023, while the room rates of hotels also increased. The rents of private student accommodation are expected to grow further as the demand for student accommodation is currently underserved and the population of non-local student is growing rapidly. Private student accommodation will be a new investment property assetā€.

The report makes it plain that the growing supply-demand gap in housing could put a serious curb on Hong Kong’s plans to expands its non-local student base: “The overheated leasing market, coupled with escalating rents, poses a significant challenge to finding suitable and affordable private accommodation. The scarcity of reasonably priced good quality accommodation options could dissuade international students from selecting Hong Kong as their preferred destination for higher education.”

In all of these respects, Hong Kong is repeating the lesson learned by so many other destinations in recent years: that any goals for significant growth in international enrolment have to be accompanied by a similar expansion of student housing stock.

For additional background, please see:

• “Student housing crunch worsens across Europe, Australia, Canada“
• “Measuring cost of study and cost of living across study destinations“
• “What if there is no room? The link between student housing and enrolment capacity“

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Those eight institutions are administered under Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee (UGC), and they are constrained in how many international students they can admit by a hard cap that is equivalent to 20% of UGC-funded spaces for local students.

The UGC currently funds spaces for 15,000 commencing students per year, meaning that Hong Kong’s universities can admit no more than 3,000 new international students annually.

It appears, however, that that is about to change. A proposal to double the foreign student cap has been submitted to education authorities in Hong Kong, and, as reported first by , it sets out that the UGC-funded universities will be allowed to increase their annual intake of foreign students from 3,000 to 6,000 students. This will effectively reset the enrolment cap from 20% of UGC-funded spaces to 40% ā€“ a new limit that will come into effect as of the 2024/25 academic year.

The last time the enrolment cap was adjusted was in 2008, at which time it was increased from 10% to the current 20%.

The proposed change to again double the foreign enrolment quota arises from a number of factors that are combining to place serious downward pressure on the enrolment base of the UGC-administered universities. This derives in part from the prevailing demographic trends. Hong Kong has one of the lowest fertility rates in the world and the population is projected and to now decline through the rest of this century. That longer-term trend has been exacerbated by a spike in outbound migration, due in part to the pandemic and possibly by concerns around new national security legislation adopted in 2020. Whatever the cause, by some reports, more than 33,000 school-age students left Hong Kong in 2021/22 alone.

The proposed increased in the foreign student enrolment cap is the latest development in a pattern of more active recruitment for Hong Kong. Earlier this year, the eight UGC universities announced a HK$10 million (US$1.3 million) investment in a two-year marketing campaign designed to attract students from a wider variety of countries targeted in China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative, including Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

In addition, authorities in Hong Kong have in recent years introduced a number of new policies to attract skilled immigrants, including the (TTPS). The TTPS was introduced in 2022 and grants visas to high earners and graduates from the worldā€™s top 100 universities with at least three years of work experience in the previous five years. This follows an earlier initiative from 2018, the , which targets immigrants in specific professional fields and aims to attract 35,000 skilled workers to the city each year. The Talent List was initially based around a target set of 11 professions but has now been expanded to more than 50.

These policy directions clearly point to a broader strategy of making Hong Kong a more attractive destination in which to study, work, and live. And in this regard, Hong Kong joins a growing list of regional destinations within Asia, including South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and Taiwan that are more actively competing for the region’s, and the world’s, top students.

For additional background, please see:

• “Korea eases work and visa policies in a bid to further boost foreign enrolment“
• “Closer to home: Intra-regional mobility in Asia“
• “Special report: Chinese students are turning to Asian destinations in greater numbers“

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For the past decade, the outflow of students from Asian countries to Western ones has been nothing short of staggering. Hundreds of thousands of students from Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Pakistan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and especially India and China travel overseas every year for degrees, contributing billions of dollars to host economies.

Western destinations have been popular because they offer so many highly ranked, high-quality universities. Asian students have traditionally chosen these schools because of the prestige attached to their degrees, a prestige that often translates into better earning potential for graduates.

But the idea that a Western degree is automatically better and more advantageous than one obtained in Asia is losing ground. Asian students now have an array of appealing options within their region for study. There are a number of reasons for this:

• A dozen of the worldā€™s 100 top ranked universities are now in Asia ā€“ in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea.

• Asia is the worldā€™s fastest-growing regional economy; China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and South Korea are driving the most expansion. Students realise that Asian universities can help them to access industry internships and jobs in the region.

• China, the continentā€™s powerhouse, invests heavily in its massive, multifaceted soft-power initiative known as One Belt, One Road, which stretches through more than a hundred countries and through South and East Asia. China is creating thousands of scholarships to attract Asian as well as African students. It is increasing higher education capacity and tempting Asian students from within the region to choose China rather than go overseas.

• Students everywhere are gravitating towards programmes with strong and immediate employment outcomes. Asian universities are performing very well in this regard. QSā€™s 2019 Graduate Employability Rankings include four Asian universities ā€“ Tsinghua, Peking, Hong Kong and Tokyo ā€“ among the top 20 institutions. QS notes that ā€œAsian universities are among the worldā€™s best at enhancing their alumniā€™s job market prospects.ā€ All told, 163 of the 500 universities in the rankings are in Asia ā€“ including 26 in China, 16 in Korea, 14 in Japan, and 13 in India.

• More than half a dozen Asian countries have national strategies aimed at making them major destinations, with several setting international student targets. China is now the worldā€™s fourth most popular study destination after the US, Australia, and Canada.

• Many Asian institutions offer lower tuition fees than those in the West, and China in particular is drawing students through scholarships.

• Asian universities provide the benefit of being closer to home for students from the region who worry about homesickness and culture shock.

Measuring risk

The top English-speaking destinations ā€“ the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada ā€“ have historically relied on Asian countries for students. For example,

• China, India, and South Korea are the top sending markets for the US, with Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan in sixth, seventh, and eighth place, respectively. China, India, and South Korea make up 71% of all international students in the US. When Vietnam, Taiwan, and Japan are added, the six Asian source countries contribute 80% of the total.

• India, China, and South Korea are also the top sending markets for Canada. Together the three countries composed almost 60% of international students in Canada in 2018.

• Eight of Australiaā€™s top 10 sending markets are Asian: China, India, Nepal, Malaysia, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia. The first three make up 48% of all enrolments, while students from the eight countries together represent 64% of Australiaā€™s international student population.

• A 33% increase in the number of Chinese students in the UK is the main reason that the number of non-EU students grew by 9% in the UK in 2018. China now accounts for one in five international students in the UK, and one in three non-EU students. India, Malaysia, and Hong Kong are also among the UKā€™s top 10 non-EU sending markets.

Altogether, there are more than a million Asian students studying in the US, Canada, Australia, and the UK.

If China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Malaysia reach their international student targets by 2025, they will enrol close to 1.5 million students ā€“ the bulk of them from neighbouring countries.

Competition increasing

In addition to the many Asian institutions scoring highly on world university rankings, still more Asian schools are competing on price, a strong position given that affordability remains an issue for many Asian families.

The following table provides a high-level summary of the relative competitive position of established and emerging study destinations within Asia.

More than ever, universities in Western destinations must provide a compelling offer to students in Asian markets (e.g., through reputation, student testimonials, internships, destination marketing, scholarships, or discounting) and ensure that once students are enrolled, they keep those promises and provide excellent student supports and graduate outcomes.

In addition, coordinated national strategies aimed at attracting international students are crucial. Well-designed visa, work, and immigration policies can make a huge difference and are the major reason that Australia and Canada continue to increase their market share, in contrast to the UK and the US.

Finally, choosing new markets to invest in is an absolute necessity to reduce the risk of exposure created by the heavy concentrations of Asian students in leading destinations.

For additional background, please see:

• ā€œUp and down the table: Growth trends across major international study destinationsā€
• ā€œDiversification and the next five marketsā€
• ā€œIs Asia ready to be the next higher education superpower?ā€

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The survey was carried out in February 2017 and the resulting report, , offers some new insights on the extent to which parents are supporting their childrenā€™s study and the factors that influence their decision making.

The headline finding is that parents spend an average of just over US$44,000 on their childrenā€™s education, including everything from school fees to uniforms to tuition and accommodation at the primary, secondary, and undergraduate levels. Nearly nine in ten parents (87%) are helping to directly fund their childrenā€™s education to some extent. This average obscures a wide range of spending on education across the sample countries with respondents from Hong Kong leading the table with a reported average lifetime spend of US$132,000 per child. This compares to average spending of US$43,000 in China and US$18,500 in Indonesia.

Most parents (85%) with a child at university or college are helping to fund costs of study, and of parents considering postgraduate education for their child, 76% expect to contribute to that level of study as well.

The vast majority (82%) are prepared to make personal sacrifices in order to help their children succeed. Nearly a third (31%) report giving up personal time or hobbies in support of their childā€™s education, and 25% either ā€œdrastically reducedā€ or completely stopped leisure activities and holidays.

ā€œIn todayā€™s highly competitive global job market, education for young people has never been more important,ā€ said HSBC Group Head of Wealth Management Charlie Nunn. ā€œParents across the world appreciate this and are willing to invest time and money to help their children get the best start in life. Their unwavering support shows in the personal, lifestyle and financial sacrifices they are making. From forfeiting ā€˜me timeā€™ to giving up hobbies or reducing leisure activities, parents are going the extra mile to help their child succeed.ā€

Driven by opportunity; cautious about cost

Most respondents (78%) see a university education as the key to better career opportunities and a brighter future for their children. More than four in ten (41%) would consider a university education abroad for their child, including 65% in the UAE, 60% in Indonesia, 55% in India, and 54% in China.

In contrast to current research indicating that most students do not have an institution in mind when they begin to plan for study abroad, the HSBC survey suggests that many parents do. Around two-fifths (39%) say they have specific universities in mind when they think about study abroad with quality of teaching (45%), prestige of the university (41%), and increased job prospects for their children (41%) the main criteria for choosing an institution overseas.

Indeed, the theme of cost carries through the report, with 40% citing the higher costs of study abroad as the primary barrier to overseas study for their child. Just over a third (34%) acknowledged that they did not know how much it would cost for their child to study at university abroad.

Main barriers to a university education abroad. Source: HSBC

Thinking about online

Cost factors again in a growing openness to online study among the parents in this yearā€™s HSBC survey. Most parents (73%) are aware of the growing range of online university programmes, and 60% would consider a university programme for their child that is either completely or partially delivered online.

As always, lying behind these average response rates are wide variations from country to country, running from 82% or 76% for India and China to 45% and 29% for the UK and France.

When asked to comment on the benefits of online programmes, most cited cost savings for tuition, travel, and living costs as the main advantages. More specifically, three in ten said that they would consider an online degree if the costs were 50% less than that of a traditional, campus-based programme.

Parentsā€™ perspective on the benefits and limitations of online programmes. Source: HSBC

Mr Nunn adds, ā€œWhile parents recognise that educating a child can be expensive, it is easy to underestimate the full and long-term costs. Parents in China are the best prepared when it comes to financial planning, however internationally many parents are not planning ahead leaving them in danger of neglecting other priorities to help their child reach their full potential. In nine of the 15 countries surveyed, paying for their childā€™s education is most likely to be parentsā€™ biggest financial commitment, above others such as mortgage/rent payments and household bills. To limit the strain that childrenā€™s education can have on family finances, itā€™s important to plan and save ahead.ā€

For additional background, please see:

• ā€œGlobal parentsā€™ survey: three quarters would consider university abroadā€
• ā€œComparing the costs of study for leading city destinationsā€
• ā€œMeasuring the cost of living in major study citiesā€

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• Digital tools, including online search and more specialised school selection sites, play a key role in the discovery phase of studentsā€™ research – that is, the point at which they are researching different institutions and trying to identify schools that could be a good fit.

• Given the growing prominence of online platforms – including search sites and online directories in student decision-making processes – senior staff should be devoting substantial attention to these platforms, perhaps more than they have in the past.

• Recent surveys from the UK point to a shift in marketing spending toward digital channels – and to paid and organic search in particular. However, they also indicate that recruiters are struggling with measuring the performance of their online campaigns.

• Nearly two-thirds (63%) of the agents responding to the 2015 ŗŚĮĻ¹ŁĶų i-graduate Agent Barometer indicated that 20% or more of their leads came from online sources in 2015. And for nearly a third, online sources accounted for 40% or more of total leads.

Google research on education-related search volumes highlights the growing role of online search in the “student decision journey” and an increasing trend of students searching exclusively online for information about study programmes.

One of the most important findings offered by the search giant is that non-branded search – that is, queries for more specific programmes or locations as opposed to those for an individual institution or school – is key. Googleā€™s analysis finds that as many as 9 in 10 prospective students donā€™t know which school they want to attend at the onset of the search process and they reflect this non-brand orientation in their search behaviour.

With this in mind, Google has recommended that recruiters target their search marketing efforts to promoting particular programmes in specific locations.

Platform insights

As these findings suggest, online search and discovery channels should now be a priority for senior marketing and recruitment staff.

Interestingly, school selection sites that operate at scale and that can therefore aggregate large volumes of student search data are now also providing valuable insights into shifting patterns of demand and behaviour online.

For example, Hotcourses, a global search platform targeted to international students, released a new analytics services late last year called “Insights” that allows for greater analysis of usage and search patterns across its websites. The company recently released commenting on some of its initial data observations, with a particular emphasis on a few key destinations and a set of emerging markets: Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt.

The paper draws on 14 months of Insights data reaching back to November 2014, and relies on data from 23,000,000 Hotcourses users in 2015 alone.

Among its high-level findings, Hotcourses finds that the US remains the most searched-for destination, with a 33.5% share of platform searches in 2015. The UK follows with 27.2%, and then Australia with 17.2%.

Share of search volumes by destination on Hotcourses, 2015. Source: Hotcourses

We have, in recent years, reported on a pattern of declining market share for the UK, and Hotcourses research corroborates this trend. Its whitepaper notes “Across all top 10 major destination countries the UK either flatlines or loses its share of searches from prospective students. This is in keeping with recent HESA data which shows the UK with a diminishing number of enrolments in six of its top 10 source countries. In the first half (January – June) of 2015, the UK received 27.5% of searches across all websites, this reduces to 26.9% by the second half of the year (July – December), an in-year fall of -0.6%.”

Curiously absent from the data are other major international study destinations, including Canada, France, China, and Germany. This perhaps illustrates that data from a proprietary search platform such as Hotcourses may not fully reflect broader patterns of student search or mobility, such as we might see on Google or other general-use search engines.

Trends in the US, UK, and Australia

An important segment of the Hotcourses whitepaper looks at “diversification markets” for the US, the UK, and Australia. It defines a diversification market as “a country which current constitutes less than 10% of students in a country.” In other words, these are source countries that are particularly significant to the diversification efforts of American, British, and Australian institutions.

In terms of these emerging markets, the US received the greatest volume of searches from Brazil (15.6% overall in 2015), Vietnam (9.9%), Thailand (6.7%), Indonesia (5.2%), and Saudi Arabia (4.4%). While Brazilian students remain those the most likely to be searching for the US of students in the diversification markers, Hotcourses notes a drop occurring through 2015 from this market (from 16% to 15.2%), which it imagines is a result of the ending of the hugely influential Brazilian scholarship programme, Science Without Borders.

The UK received the greatest volume of diversification market searches from Thailand (13.3% overall in 2015), Indonesia (11.1%), Vietnam (7.0%), Brazil (6.8%), and Saudi Arabia (4.2%).

As we noted earlier, Hotcourses notes that the general trend is negative for the UK, with the UK either flatlining or losing share of searches from prospective students. However, there is one bright spot: “The UK sees an increase from 37.3% to 41.1% in searches from Indonesia from the first to the second half of 2015 ā€¦. this would indicate Indonesian students are looking beyond the traditional countries of USA, Australia and NZ.”

Australia, meanwhile, is generating the most searches from these diversification markets: Vietnam (16.6%), Indonesia (13.4%), Thailand (11.1%), Brazil (6.5%), and Saudi Arabia (2.4%).

Hotcourses notices a significant drop in searches for Australia from Indonesian students (from 15.4% to 11.5% over the course of 2015). It relates this to a wider context of Indonesian students feeling unwelcome in Australia: “In the early part of 2015, there had been a number of high profile news stories where asylum seekers from Indonesia were refused entry to Australia, and this appears to have filtered through into the extent to which prospective students wish to study in that country.”

Top subjects searched for by different markets

Overall, Engineering, Health and Medicine, and Business and Management are the top subject searches, but there is some variation. These are the top subject searches (in order) the report notes for five countries:

• India: Engineering, Health and Medicine, Business and Management, Applied and Pure Sciences, Computer Science and IT;
• Saudi Arabia: Engineering, Health and Medicine, Business and Management, Applied and Pure Sciences, Social Studies and Media;
• Thailand: Engineering, Health and Medicine, Business and Management, Creative Arts and Design, Social Studies and Media;
• Russia: Business and Management, Creative Arts and Design, Social Studies and Media, Health and Medicine, Applied and Pure Sciences.

Overall, the Hotcourses report sheds fascinating light on the study interests of prospective students from key markets as reflected in these studentsā€™ search behaviour. The insights from this report alone could help to finetune recruitment tactics for specific markets – including those “diversification markets” that educators are increasingly aware they have to consider in their enrolment strategies.

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The allure, and challenges, of studying in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has for some time positioned itself as “,” and this claim is well founded for a number of reasons, not the least the cityā€™s vibrant, modern culture and sophistication. The Special Administrative Region (SAR) has close ties with Mainland China but it is also, famously, distinct from the mainland due to its protection of freedom of expression and relative openness to diverse opinions and cultural influences. International students see it as an entry point into Asian culture and economies at the same time as it is connected to more far-flung global financial and corporate markets.

QS considers three universities in the Special Administrative Region – the University of Hong Kong (HKU), the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) – to be among the best in Asia; all three universities now rank in the QS top 60 universities in the world. These universities are among the nine (soon to be ten) in the SAR, all of which deliver courses primarily in English. Along with Cantonese, English remains an official language in Hong Kong.

Not surprisingly, Hong Kong is attracting a significant number of international students to its universities, with the latest UNESCO data reporting 30,013 inbound international students for 2012. The majority of those (25,801) come from Mainland China, followed by Korea (702), Malaysia (330), India (243), and Indonesia (220).

Last year, The Guardian looked at . In the article, Liu Zehui, a mainland Chinese student at Hong Kong Baptist University, commented, “Hong Kong is like a huge hinge where you may get access to many other parts of the world.” Ms Zehui said she chose to further her studies in Hong Kong because she was “fascinated by the cityā€™s cosmopolitanism.”

The Guardian also talked with Henry Zhao, a second-year Australian student at CUHK. Mr Zhao told the newspaper that Hong Kong is “the melting point of western and Asian cultures.”

Not for everyone

But Hong Kong can also be a challenging place to study for some students. Last year, global investment firm Mercer ranked Hong Kong second (after Luanda in Angola) in its annual ranking of .

This means in part that student housing is also in short supply, and that costs of living on the island can have a significant impact on the overall cost of study in Hong Kong. The SAR has eased for foreign students in response, and students can now partially offset cost of living expenses by working on-campus for up to 20 hours per week and full-time – whether on-campus or off-campus – during the summer months.

Outbound numbers rising

The number of Hong Kong students seeking study options elsewhere continues to grow. 2013 saw 31,825 Hong Kong students study abroad, with the United Kingdom (12,946), Australia (9,244), the United States (7,681) and Canada (1,614) hosting the vast majority. Recent figures from Australia indicate a 22% increase in overall enrolment from Hong Kong (and a just-over 28% increase in commencements) between 2013 and 2014. While Hong Kong enrolment in the US has been essentially flat over the past several years, show a similar jump between 2012 and 2013. Data from the Higher Education Funding Council for England showed more than 4,600 Hong Kong students enrolled in undergraduate courses in 2012/13, up 24% from 2011/12, even as overall international student numbers remained stagnant in the UK.

So what is driving this increase in outbound Hong Kong students?

As we reported in 2014, Hong Kongā€™s transition to the new Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) credential has created uncertainty and confusion for many students and families. Under the changes, the General Certificate of Education Advanced Level (more commonly known as the GCE A Level) was replaced by the DSE. The length of combined primary and secondary education in the Hong Kong system was shortened to 12 years (from 13), and undergraduate programmes expanded from three to four years ā€“Ā all of which effectively moves Hong Kong away from British education models and closer to those of the US.

Consequently, some families are choosing to send their children away earlier to study abroad. According to Dr Edward Wong, director of the Milton International Education Group, “In one year alone (2010/11) the percentage of Chinese overseas students with less than a high school education rose from 20% to 23%.”

More recently, political unease in Hong Kong, driven in large part by the massive student-led pro-democracy student protests of 2014, has left some students and families nervous about an alleged “pro-Beijing” trend taking hold in Hong Kong government circles. In 2015, University of Hong Kong (HKU) Vice-President Ian Holliday announced that the university would be making exchange programmes to institutions in mainland China mandatory. The announcement provoked student outrage and Professor Holliday backed down, promising instead to consult students on the way student exchange programmes to China would be instituted.

But the proposed plan is seen by many in Hong Kong to be part of growing pressure on Hong Kongā€™s schools to bring in “patriotic” education supporting Mainland Chinese values. Ip Kin-yuen, a Hong Kong legislator representing the education constituency and a head of the Hong Kong Professional Teachersā€™ Union, that any mandatory exchange programme imposed on HKU students could make some reluctant to study at the university.

Indeed, a poll by HKUā€™s campus television station found that had no interest in participating in a Mainland China exchange experience.

Meanwhile, academics in Hong Kong remain wary of possible limitations on academic freedom. In recent years, a campaign called has made calls for government non-interference in institutional autonomy in the wake of renewed scrutiny by Beijing of the role of academics and university faculty in massive pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Any such concerns are likely to continue to fuel demand for study abroad for the foreseeable future, as will the recent education reforms. Local education capacity remains an issue as well, particularly in terms of the spaces available in international secondary school programmes within Hong Kong.

For some time, Hong Kong has also had too few university spaces of both local and visiting students in the SAR. But this situation is expected to reverse itself sometime this year. As we have noted previously, the Hong Kong Education Bureau predicts that by 2016 there will be approximately 23,200 university places in the SAR for a projected 22,000 qualified students. This excess capacity at the university level will bear on Hong Kongā€™s recruitment of inbound students but will no doubt also play a part in shaping demand for overseas study in the years ahead.

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