Hong Kong’s public universities will push to enrol more “quality overseas students” to ensure greater diversity on campuses, a minister has said, after mainland Chinese candidates made up more than 70 per cent of their first-year, non-local undergraduates in the 2024-25 academic year.

Secretary for Education Christine Choi Yuk-lin also said that four local universities had sent 36 offers to those affected by the United States’ recent policy changes for international students, noting they had received about 850 related inquiries.

In an interview with local media outlets last Friday, she said the non-local student admission quotas for the city’s eight publicly funded universities, which are currently capped at 40 per cent and total about 30,000 places, could be gradually increased.

She said that local authorities would negotiate with China’s Ministry of Education, adding that the 40 per cent threshold was “not a limit”.

“In the long run, if our supporting facilities are ready and all admission spots are full, similar to the keen competition this year, we will look at the situation and move forward step by step,” she said.

Choi said there was no time frame for increasing the proportion of non-local students at public universities, noting the institutions had yet to use up the current quota.