Tuition Fees and Financial Aid at The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Module: 02 Admissions · Sub-file: Tuition Fees / Scholarships and Financial Aid Last updated: 2026-06-15 · All monetary amounts in Hong Kong dollars (HK$). This article covers undergraduate tuition fees, accommodation costs, entrance scholarships, and government financial aid for both local and non-local students at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) Shatin campus. Tuition figures are highly time-sensitive; the academic year to which each applies is stated. Always verify against the latest official releases. The primary reference year is the 2025–26 academic year, with subsequent years listed where available.

CUHK's money flows in two opposite directions: one stream is what students pay in (tuition fees, accommodation), and the other is what the University pays out or the government subsidises (scholarships, government grants, loans). For local students, these two currents nearly cancel each other out—tuition fees are kept extremely low by government subsidy. Non-local students, by contrast, bear almost the full cost, and the steep increases from 2025 onward have pushed the question of "how much does it really cost to study in Hong Kong?" back onto the table.

# 1. Tuition Fees: Local Rates Barely Budge, Non-Local Make a Three-Year Leap

# 1.1 Local Undergraduate Tuition—A Quarter-Century Freeze, Then a Three-Year Nudge from 2025

Local CUHK undergraduates are enrolled in UGC-funded programmes. Tuition fees for these are set uniformly by the government and have long stood well below the actual cost of provision. According to a government press release (2024-06-20)^※, tuition fees for UGC-funded universities will be adjusted upward by an average of 5.5% per annum across the three academic years from 2025/26 to 2027/28:

Note: Media reports often describe the freeze as having begun in "1996/97" or "from 2001 onwards," with inconsistent phrasing; the official line is that the freeze began in the 1997/98 academic year. The core fact is the same—this is a sum of money that barely moved for nearly three decades. CUHK undergraduate tuition is also published on the CUHK Admissions Office "Fees" page^※.

# 1.2 Non-Local / International Undergraduate Tuition—First Rise in Seven Years, Steepest Among All Eight UGC-Funded Institutions

In stark contrast to local students, non-local students (international students, self-funded students from mainland China, etc.) pay almost the full cost for the same programmes. In 2025, they faced the first—and largest—tuition increase in seven years.

According to a report by HK01 dated 2025-01-14^※, in January 2025, all eight UGC-funded universities in Hong Kong raised non-local undergraduate tuition fees simultaneously for the first time, with increases ranging from 6.3% to 22.8%. CUHK raised its fee from HK$145,000 to HK$178,000—an increase of about 22.8%, the highest among the eight. The University stated this was its first adjustment in seven years, made in response to inflation.

# 1.3 Two Prices for the Same Meal: The Local–Non-Local Gap

Lay the two tables side by side and the disparity is stark: same classes, same lecturers, same campus—in 2025/26, a local student pays HK$44,500, while a non-local student pays HK$178,000. The latter is roughly four times the former. For the 2026 entry cohort, the non-local fee of HK$214,000 will be nearly 4.8 times the local fee. This gap is the weight carried by the term "UGC-funded": over ninety per cent of a local student's costs are covered by public money, a sum non-local students must cover themselves—and on whom cost increases are passed through first.

# 2. Accommodation and Other Fees

• Accommodation fees (hostel charges): CUHK operates a collegiate system, and hostel fees vary by college and room type. Some new colleges established after 2006 operate a full-residence and communal dining model, providing guaranteed accommodation for the full programme duration and a communal dining culture, with correspondingly higher fees. Older colleges generally charge less but have intense competition for hostel places. Exact fees are published by each college annually and are not listed here to avoid them becoming outdated; please refer to individual college pages (for the college system in detail, see Module 10: ../10-colleges/README.md).
• Incidental fees / caution money / reservation fee: Non-local tuition is generally payable in two instalments per academic year. For the 2026 entry cohort (HK$214,000 per annum), this amounts to approximately HK$107,000 per semester. Other charges such as caution money and student union fees are as published on the CUHK Admissions Office "Fees" page^※.

# 3. Entrance Scholarships (Money Paid Out)

Most entrance scholarships at CUHK require no separate application and are assessed automatically based on admission qualifications.

# 3.1 University Admission Scholarships

According to the CUHK Admissions Office^※, University Admission Scholarships awarded to local JUPAS entrants range from a one-off minimum of HK$8,000 to as much as HK$699,500 (disbursed in instalments to cover full tuition, plus a one-off learning allowance and scholarships for overseas/local study exchanges). No application is needed; the University identifies eligible local students after admission offers are made and notifies them.

# 3.2 Vice-Chancellor's Scholarships for Excellence

According to the CUHK Admissions Office^※, eight non-renewable awards of HK$50,000 each are conferred annually on outstanding new entrants admitted to any full-time undergraduate programme, regardless of admission pathway or residency status. Selection is based on a combination of academic and non-academic achievements, including admission grades, first-semester results, language proficiency, leadership and service record, and awards received. Students are invited by their Faculty to compete after the start of the academic year.

# 3.3 Entrance Scholarships for Gaokao Candidates from Mainland China (Top Scorer Scholarships)

CUHK offers several tiers of entrance scholarships for mainland Chinese students taking the gaokao, China's national university entrance exam. No separate application is required; assessment is automatic, based on gaokao scores (excluding bonus points). According to the CUHK Undergraduate Admissions simplified Chinese site^※:

Each scholarship tier typically also has hard requirements (e.g., a minimum score in the English language paper) and is tenable only for the normal duration of study, up to a maximum of four years. What is colloquially known as the "zhuangyuan scholarship" corresponds to the Full Scholarship tier.

# 4. Government Grants and Loans (The Safety Net)

For local students facing financial difficulties, a further public safety net exists, administered primarily through two schemes run by the Hong Kong government's Student Finance Office (SFO):

• Tertiary Student Finance Scheme (TSFS): A means-tested combination of grants (which do not need to be repaid) and low-interest loans for eligible full-time students on UGC-funded programmes, which can cover tuition fees, academic expenses, and living costs.
• Non-means-tested Loan Scheme for Full-time Tertiary Students (NLSFT): A non-means-tested loan scheme open to any local full-time student on a UGC-funded programme to cover tuition fees, repayable with interest after graduation.

The above are territory-wide Hong Kong government schemes, not specific to CUHK. For precise grant amounts and interest rates, refer to the latest Student Finance Office publications. Public discussions around "student loans becoming student debt" and "graduating into indebtedness" fall into the category of lower-verifiability sources and point toward the site's wilder history section; this article makes no determination of fact on those questions.

# Data Reliability and Gaps

• Hard official data: The three-year local tuition table (42,100 → 44,500 → 47,000 → 49,500), the 5.5% annual increase, the freeze from 1997/98, cost recovery ratio from 12.5% → 13.4%, CPI +40%, non-local fees of 178,000 and 214,000, Vice-Chancellor's Scholarships (8 × 50,000), Admission Scholarships (8,000–699,500), and the thresholds and 66,000 allowance for mainland scholarships are all taken directly from government press releases and the CUHK admissions website.
• Media compilations (the cross-institutional comparison table): Sourced from HK01 and Dot Dot News, these are second-hand compilations. Exact figures for individual institutions should be confirmed against those institutions' own releases. Some universities (e.g., HKU) differentiate fees by faculty, and only verifiable figures are presented in the table above.
• Figures not given in exact amounts: Individual college hostel fees and the specific grant/loan amounts under the TSFS and NLSFT fluctuate annually and are not CUHK-specific. This article therefore describes the mechanisms but does not list amounts likely to become outdated, and it explicitly directs readers to official pages for those details.