After nearly three decades of frozen tuition fees, authorities in Hong Kong have announced a planned increase of HK$2,400 in 2025 followed by additional increases of HK$2,500 in the subsequent two years, totaling a 17.6 per cent rise. The government has defended this average annual increase of 5.5 per cent as “very modest” due to the need to improve the cost recovery rate, which has decreased from 18 per cent in the 1990s to around 12.5 per cent in the 2024-25 academic year.
The tuition fees for publicly funded programs under the University Grants Committee (UGC) will see an increase from the current HK$42,100 to HK$44,500 in the next academic year, with further increases to HK$47,000 and HK$49,000 in the academic years 2026-27 and 2027-28, respectively.