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school, sports facilities and residences. Over the next few
years, HKU plans several other infrastructure projects and
hundreds of new hires at the professorial level.
Hong Kong’s flagship institution is not alone in engaging
in what seems like a spending spree. Similar developments
are happening at universities across the more affluent parts
of East and South-east Asia, where new institutes, depart-
ments and degree programmes are sprouting. Much of this
recent rise in spending comes from state coffers, as well
as from government messaging to business that education
should be a target for philanthropy.
Mainland China’s higher education budget, for example,
grew by 12 percent from 2019 to 2020. Meanwhile, com-
panies with close state ties have responded to the siren
call that they are expected to pitch in, especially in fields
of study deemed politically or socially important. Vanke,
a property conglomerate with links to the government, HKU new campus launch ceremony: rising government spending
funded an eponymous public health school at Tsinghua
University in spring 2020, right at the height of the coun- tries that have become reliant on income from international
try’s Covid outbreak. students. Institutions in the US, the UK and Australia, for
Japan may not have the same annual budget increases instance, have seen drastic drops in revenue as Covid-19
as mainland China, but it too is making a concerted effort kept overseas students away.
towards new financing. The government announced this Asian institutions were never highly dependent on in-
year that it aims to raise capital for an eye-popping ¥10 ternational fees to begin with, and they have continued to
trillion (Rs.6 lakh crore) university research fund by 2022. rely on high demand from local or regional students. They
If it succeeds, it will have a fund double the size of Harvard are also being bolstered by rising state support and growing
University’s endowment. local philanthropy, both of which are closely tied to notions
Relatively smaller high-tech states are also trying to of nation-building and social responsibility, especially since
muscle in on the competition for top academics and stu- the Covid-19 pandemic.
dents. Taiwan (pop.23 million) will spend an additional Hugo Horta, an HKU associate professor studying the
NT$83.6 billion (Rs.22,210 crore) over five years to develop social contexts and policies of education, says Asian and
universities, teaching and innovation, according to a 2019- Western higher education systems are “almost the oppo-
20 report from the education ministry. The ‘Higher Edu- site” in terms of their approach to financing. “In Western
cation Sprout Project’ will also include incentives to offer countries, like the US, the government became sidetracked
“internationally competitive packages” for foreign academ- away from funding universities, which are now almost com-
ics, while Taiwan’s defence ministry will pitch into higher pletely reliant on the market. So to fund research, which
education institutions for the first time with an additional is expensive, they need international students or donors.
NT$5 billion programme for research. Growth is happening That’s not happening so much here,” he says.
in developing nations, too. Malaysia, for example, has set Although social unrest that led to student arrests, police
aside an impressive 20 percent of its entire 2021 national actions on campuses and a new national security law may
budget for education. have stirred up serious concerns about academic freedom
There are also signs of development in other parts of in Hong Kong, it seems these factors, so far, have not had
Asia, even if they have been harder hit by Covid. India has any negative effect on institutions’ academic performance
ambitions to double the size of its higher education sec- or bank balances.
tor under its new National Education Policy 2020. Mean- Moreover, it seems that the stereotype that new Asian
while, its latest budget, announced in February, included money is going only to STEM and medical fields does not
Rs.50,000 crore for the first five years of a new National hold true. Hong Kong Baptist University’s philanthropic do-
Research Foundation (NRF). While state universities are nations more than tripled from HK$81 million to HK$307
struggling financially, private institutions have grown million (Rs.291 crore), partly because of its largest-ever gift
rapidly despite the Covid crisis. One case in point is O.P. for a new facility — the Jockey Club Campus of Creativity.
Jindal Global University, which welcomed 209 new faculty Lingnan University, a liberal arts college, recorded an al-
in 2020 and an additional 112 this January. most eightfold increase in donations, from HK$26 million
Higher education systems in this part of the world are to HK$204 million.
flourishing in part because they were spared much of the
financial damage suffered by major English-speaking coun- (Excerpted and adapted from Times Higher Education)

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