Community College Policy in Hong Kong: Intention,Practices, and Consequence

In order to increase the competitiveness of the workforce at low cost, the Hong Kong government brought in the idea of community colleges and the associate degree while keeping the same annual set quota of first-year, first-degree places at publicly-funded universities. At first glance, in doing so, the government could avoid expanding the sector of university education, which could eventually lead to credential inflation usually found in the West. However, the policy, perhaps unintentionally, boosts up students’ educational aspiration: while a greater number of students obtain an associate degree, they do not take an associate degree as a final degree but demand a bachelor degree. This rising demand, then, leads to the emergence and subsequent expansion of the self-financing sector of university education. This Hong Kong experience demonstrates that it is perhaps a mission impossible, to let more people have a higher education while keeping the sector of higher education intact.