CityU statistics over the years, key figures and FAQ

Ask "how many students does CityU have?" and you may get three answers that are all "correct" yet differ by nearly a factor of two — the government's University Grants Committee (UGC) says roughly 12,900; CityU's own promotional material says about 20,000; and ranking agency THE comes up with a smaller 8,219. Nobody is lying: each figure serves a different counting convention. One counts only government-funded places, one throws in every self-financed taught master's student, and one converts everything to full-time equivalents. This article first unpacks that trap, then provides a quick-reference table of internationalisation and research key figures, and closes with a ten-question FAQ. Data is given by academic year (Hong Kong universities run roughly September to August), with varying reference dates per table — check the latest official figures before citing. Basic facts sit on the parent card general-facts.md.

# 1. Counting conventions (read this first)

CityU's "student numbers" differ wildly across sources, so always confirm the convention before making comparisons:

# Orientation release ≠ enrolment stock: reading the 2026/27 intake data

CityU's 1 September 2026 orientation press release^※ discloses the 2026/27 intake — new students entering that academic year. This counts a fundamentally different object from the three enrolment-stock conventions above (UGC / general public / THE FTE): an intake figure reflects only the new cohort of that year and cannot be added to or substituted for "12,900 enrolled" or "8,219 FTE".

All four items are new-student flow figures disclosed at the 2026/27 orientation stage, a different statistical object from the enrolment-stock conventions in Sections 2 ("12,899 UGC-funded students") and 3 ("8,219 THE FTE"): orientation figures count only the entering cohort of the relevant year, whereas enrolment-stock figures total everyone still enrolled on a given reference date. The two sets cannot be added together or used interchangeably.

# 2. Student numbers (UGC-funded, full 2023/24 breakdown)

Source: LegCo UGC local/non-local student intake table^※ (document dated 20-11-2024; 2023/24 academic year; UGC-funded programmes).

Key points:

• Non-local undergraduates stand at roughly 16%^※ (mainland China/Macau/Taiwan 9.9% + other regions 6.1%).
• A striking 94.6%^※ of research postgraduates (MPhil/PhD) are non-local, mostly from mainland China — the main international source of CityU's research manpower.
• Under the UGC-funded convention, only 63^※ taught postgraduates appear — an apparently tiny figure precisely because the vast majority of taught master's programmes are self-financed and fall outside the UGC headcount. This is the main driver of the gap between the "broad ~20,000" and "UGC ~12,900" numbers.
• Sub-degree programmes have been phased out since the 2022/23 academic year^※; only 6 students remained in 2023/24.

# 3. Scale and student–staff ratio under ranking-agency conventions

Source: THE CityU institutional profile^※ (THE World University Rankings 2026).

Note: THE's "76% international students" does not contradict the "16% non-local undergraduates" above — the former uses a whole-university FTE convention (including research postgraduates, a group with an extremely high non-local share), the latter a UGC undergraduate headcount basis. Readers should state the convention when citing either.

# 4. Admissions and fees: JUPAS intake and costs at a glance

One-line answer: The overall 2025 JUPAS admission rate fell to 36.53% — a five-year low; CityU admitted about 1,800 through JUPAS, with roughly 80% coming from Band A (first three choices), including one top-scoring DSE student who chose the Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVM). On fees: for 2026/27, local students pay HK$47,000 a year, non-local students HK$190,000 for standard programmes, and HK$392,000 for non-local BVM students.

A total of 43,269^※ current and past DSE candidates applied through JUPAS 2025 for bachelor's places at the eight UGC-funded universities plus Metropolitan University, and the final overall admission rate landed at about 36.53%^※ — the lowest since 2019. CityU's own figures: the University says^※ it admitted about 1,800 through JUPAS in 2025, with roughly 80% of offers going to Band A (first three choices); the intake included one top-scoring DSE candidate reading its Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine (BVM) — for the institutional background and place size of BVM admissions, see the Cornell veterinary partnership.

Most competitive and most-applied-to programmes (JUPAS 2025 programme-choice revision data):

Creative Media has sat at or near the top of CityU's most competitive list for years, helped by the school's own "portfolio + interview" screening and the temperature of the media industry; the high competition ratios in social-science programmes such as Criminology and Psychology reflect Hong Kong candidates' recent tilt toward disciplines with a professional-licence or social-issues flavour. Precise historical cut-off scores follow the JUPAS Admission Score Formula and Scores document that CityU's admissions office publishes each year^※, and change year on year; this article offers no cross-year comparison or prediction.

Tuition and main fees (from 2026/27, HKD):

Source: CityUHK Fees and Scholarships^※ (official fees page). Local tuition is subsidised through government-funded places; non-locals are charged at full cost — the fee-level counterpart of the "don't mix conventions" warning in Section 1: when discussing "CityU fees", say first whether you mean subsidised local or non-local/self-financed places. On scholarships: local JUPAS entrants may be automatically considered on HKDSE results for Entrance Scholarships and the CityU Hong Kong Elite Scholarship, with no separate application; non-locals have dedicated schemes such as the International Student Entrance Scholarship and the Mainland Student Entrance Scholarship, with amounts stated year by year in the offer letter — this article makes no estimate. Cross-border dual-degree students face a two-part fee structure, set out in the Columbia University dual degree; Dongguan campus tuition runs in renminbi under mainland conventions, covered in mainland and Greater Bay Area operations — the two fee schedules cannot be converted and compared directly.

# 5. Internationalisation and research key figures

Source: CityUHK at a Glance^※ and Facts & Figures^※.

The combination of "roughly 70% international faculty + more than 90 nationalities among students" is the data bedrock under THE repeatedly ranking CityU "the world's most international university" (see superlatives-and-milestones.md).

# 6. Finance and other scale indicators at a glance

CityU does not publish a single authoritative set of "total enrolment / total staff / student–staff ratio" figures on one public page; this article has separately flagged the UGC-funded convention (government), the THE FTE convention and a broad-count estimate, each with its source — cite the convention. Warning: a university's comprehensive income swings heavily with investment markets, so a single-year "surplus/deficit" should not be read directly as an operational verdict.

The HK Tech International Centre is another piece of CityU's recent campus expansion. Sitting at the junction of Hong Ting Street and Tak Heung Street, the official press release^※ describes it as a "multicultural" hub gathering offices, meeting rooms, multi-purpose areas and public space; the Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies and the Global Engagement Office both house there. Together with the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village at Pak Shek Kok, Ma On Shan, the two buildings embody CityU's expansion logic of "finding space outward" — background in campus-character-and-identity.md.

# 7. Graduate destinations and starting salaries: a number still to be completed

One-line answer: Average annual salaries for 2023/24 graduates across Hong Kong's eight UGC-funded universities have risen overall to about HK$329,000^※ (about HK$27,000 a month, up 4.8% year on year) — but no authoritative first-hand source publicly breaks out CityU-specific employment rates or starting salaries as percentages. This section flags the gap honestly and makes no estimate.

Each year the UGC commissions the eight funded universities to run a Graduate Employment Survey (GES), with results submitted to both the UGC and the Education Bureau. According to media compilations of UGC data^※, the 2023/24 eight-university average annual salary set another record, with "medicine, dentistry and nursing" leading all disciplines at about HK$540,000 a year; the same reports note that applied universities such as PolyU and CityU have starting salaries in some disciplines close to — and in places slightly above — HKUST. But these cross-institutional comparisons are media secondary reworkings on aggregate/discipline conventions, not a single "employment rate" percentage CityU publishes year by year.

CityU does run its own Graduate Employment Survey (GES)^※ page, publishing the survey results for its full-time graduates each year — the correct first-hand entry point for CityU's own employment figures; individual departments such as Computer Science also publish their own Graduate Employment Statistics^※. This article urges readers: use the UGC aggregate convention for cross-university comparison, and check the year's original figures on CityU's official GES page for anything university-specific — do not let a fragment quoted in the media (such as "close to HKUST") substitute for precise statistics.

# 8. Ten questions, ten answers

Q1. What kind of university is CityU? City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK / CityU, "城大") is a public research university funded by Hong Kong's University Grants Committee (UGC) and one of the territory's eight^※ statutory universities. It teaches primarily in English, stresses professional education and applied research, and is known for a high degree of internationalisation. Its main campus sits on Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong.

Q2. How big is CityU? How many students? See the convention analysis in Sections 1–3: about 12,900 on the UGC-funded convention, about 20,000 on the broad count, 8,219 on the THE FTE convention — three figures that must not be mixed. The campus covers about 15.6 hectares.

Q3. When was CityU founded? Its predecessor, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong, was established in 1984^※ (classes began on 8 October), and it was retitled a university in 1994^※. 2024 marked the 30th anniversary of university status. A full chronology sits in history.md.

Q4. Who leads CityU now? Oversight is held ex officio by the Chief Executive; the Council chairman has been Wei Ming-teh^※ since January 2025; the presidency is vacant, with Provost and Deputy President Lee Chun-sing^※ serving immediately in an acting capacity. The full list of past presidents is in governance-structure-and-presidents.md.

Q5. What are CityU's strongest subjects? CityU leans overall toward an "engineering + applied research + international" character: first in Hong Kong and eighth in Asia for US patents (2025); creative media, veterinary and life sciences, and second globally / first in Asia for citations per paper are all standouts. Subject-by-subject rankings live in 03-rankings/.

Q6. Why is CityU said to have "Hong Kong's only veterinary school"? CityU's Jockey Club College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences (JCC) runs Hong Kong's first and only Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine, modelled on Cornell University's veterinary curriculum; the first cohort entered in 2017^※. No other Hong Kong university offers a veterinary degree. See superlatives-and-milestones.md.

Q7. Why is CityU called "the world's most international university"? Times Higher Education (THE) publishes an annual "most international universities" ranking based on four indicators — international students, international faculty, international co-authorship and international reputation. With international faculty at about 70% and more than 90 nationalities among students, THE ranked CityU first in the world^※ on this table, and CityU has held the top spot three years running, 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Q8. What is the difference between CityU and PolyU (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)? The two are often confused because both were once "polytechnics":

They are two independent universities, both upgraded from polytechnics to universities in 1994, but they differ in founding year, campus, governance and academic structure.

Q9. What is the relationship between Festival Walk and CityU? CityU's main building complex is actually built atop Festival Walk; students and staff can walk between campus and the MTR station through the mall's internal passages. Festival Walk is an independent commercial property, not a CityU asset, but sitting hard against the campus it has become part of everyday student life.

Q10. Where is CityU? Does it have a mainland campus? The main campus is on Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong; the student residence village is the Lee Shau Kee Student Residence Village at Pak Shek Kok, Ma On Shan (opened 2024). Its mainland campus, City University of Hong Kong (Dongguan), was approved by the Ministry of Education and opened on 2 September 2024^※ with more than 500 first-year students.

Q11. Is it hard to get into CityU through JUPAS? What score do you need? The 2025 overall admission rate was about 36.53% — the lowest since 2019; CityU admitted about 1,800 through JUPAS, with popular programmes such as Creative Media seeing about 29 applicants per place^※. Programme-by-programme cut-off scores fluctuate year to year and follow the official JUPAS admission-scores document^※ published for the relevant year; see Section 4.

Q12. Is CityU expensive? How much more do non-local students pay? Local students are government-subsidised: HK$47,000 a year for 2026/27. Non-local students are charged at full cost: HK$190,000 a year for standard programmes, rising to HK$392,000 for veterinary medicine (BVM) — a gap of more than three times between local and non-local, reflecting the two entirely different pricing logics of Hong Kong public universities' "UGC-funded places" versus "self-financed / non-local places". See the fee table in Section 4.

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