The Government's targets are:

	to provide 14 500 first-year first-degree (FYFD) places to cater for about 18% of the 17 to 20 age group.
	to support the progressive increase in post-secondary education. Our planning target is that by 2010/11, 60% of our senior secondary school leavers will have access to post-secondary education.
	to make available to working adults further opportunities for higher education through the Open University of Hong Kong;
	to ensure that no qualified students are denied access to tertiary education due to a lack of financial means;
	to assure the quality of tertiary education and ensure its relevance to the needs and development of the community; and
	to ensure that courses leading to non-local higher academic and professional qualifications are conducted by recognised institutions and professional bodies and have attained comparable standards and recognition as similar courses in the home countries concerned.

Present Position

We now provide 14 500 first-year first-degree places to about 18% of the 17 to 20 age group.

There are twelve degree-awarding institutions, eight of which are funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC). Of the eight, seven are fully self-accrediting universities namely, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Baptist University, Lingnan University, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the University of Hong Kong. The other is the Hong Kong Institute of Education which has self-accrediting status in respect of its teacher education programmes at degree and above levels. In addition, there are four tertiary institutions not funded by the UGC namely, the publicly-funded Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the self-financing Open University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Shue Yan University and the Chu Hai College of Higher Education.

UGC-funded institutions are offering over 45 000 degree places (in full-time-equivalent terms).

In the 2005/06 to 2007/08 triennium, the recurrent funding for UGC-funded institutions is $31,266.7 million.

The Student Financial Assistance Agency administers various student financial assistance schemes to ensure that no person will be denied access to tertiary education because of a lack of financial means. The financial assistance / loan schemes cover full-time students taking up exclusively University Grant Committee-funded or exclusively publicly-funded student places of local universities/tertiary institutions, full-time students pursuing accredited courses and students pursuing part-time publicly-funded programmes or self-financing, local award-bearing programmes offered by publicly-funded institutions, and persons pursuing continuing and professional courses provided in Hong Kong by registered schools, non-local universities and recognised training bodies.  In the 2004/05 academic year, SFAA disbursed $1,081 million in grants and $1,740 million in means-tested and non-means-tested loans to eligible students.