Zero-Covid policy dents appeal of Hong Kong MBAs

Hong Kong’s top-ranked business schools risk losing out to regional rivals as companies exit the Chinese territory amid Beijing’s zero-Covid policies and clampdowns on civil freedoms in the city.

Enrolment by international students at Hong Kong’s top universities has dropped for the first time in a decade, according to the city’s University Grants Committee. Students appear to have been deterred by China’s imposition of a sweeping national security law following pro-democracy protests in 2019, as well as pandemic curbs.

But academics at the city’s business schools worry that China’s strict zero-Covid policy will have a more lasting effect on enrolment, and push students to take courses elsewhere, such as Singapore.

“More than half of our students in our full-time MBAs used to be from overseas, pre-pandemic,” says Waiman Cheung, associate dean of graduate studies at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Business School. “That has suffered during Covid.”

Chicago Booth has even been forced to close its Hong Kong campus due to China’s zero-Covid policy, moving its executive MBA programme to Singapore temporarily. And a joint executive MBA between the University of Hong Kong, Columbia Business School, and London Business School has been suspended due to insufficient demand.

Official data show that overseas student enrolment in all degrees across Hong Kong’s universities fell after 2019/20, although stronger demand from mainland Chinese students…