Hong Kong increases enrolment for international students, but some students prefer universities in Singapore

SINGAPORE: Singapore has not only established itself as a finance, trade, and technology hub in its corner of the world but is also becoming known as an education hub in Asia. This is in large part due to the reputations of local universities such as the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and even Singapore Management University (SMU).

As an Oct 12 article in the South China Morning Post (SCMP) pointed out, even if Hong Kong has raised its cap on international students from 40% to 50%, the number of non-local students in the last academic year at public universities in Hong Kong has stayed below what it was before the Covid-19 pandemic.

The piece suggested that there are international students who prefer Singapore over Hong Kong, and quoted a local admissions officer as noting how Singapore is coming up as a growing education powerhouse.

SCMP quoted the director of admissions and financial aid at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Andy Wong Ka-chat, as saying, “We asked some students getting our offers where they would choose instead, some said the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Political Science in the UK, and some said Singapore.”

Mr Wong added that NUS is in the top 20 of the Times Higher Education (THE) rankings and that students may check these rankings out if they’re unfamiliar with the countries or places where universities are located.

“Universities in Singapore are strong indeed,” he said.

NUS ranks 8th in the 2026 QS World University Rankings, while NTU ranks 12th. In this year’s THE rankings, NUS is 17th and NTU is 31st.

The University of Hong Kong (HKU), meanwhile, ranked 33rd and CUHK, 41st, in THE’s 2026 rankings.

The vast majority of non-local first-year students enrolled at Hong Kong’s public universities, 4119, are from Mainland China, with Indonesia (247) and South Korea (195) coming in at a distant second and third places, respectively.

Whether international students prefer studying in Singapore over Hong Kong still depends on a number of factors. Students who intend to work in China, especially in the finance or business sectors, might still opt to study in Hong Kong, seeing it as a more natural gateway to their careers. Some may also choose Hong Kong because the cost of living, especially housing, is more prohibitive in Singapore. /TISG

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