HKUST professor charged with accepting $5,100 bribe amid Hong Kong's escalating admissions fraud crisis By

By Huyen Trang, Phan Anh   March 21, 2026 | 06:01 am GMT+7

Liu Hongbin, former professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Photo courtesy of HKUST

A former professor at one of Hong Kong's top-ranked universities has been charged with accepting a $5,100 bribe to help a student gain admission to a master's program, in the latest case to expose cracks in the city's higher education system as it aggressively recruits international students.

Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) announced on March 17 that Liu Hongbin, 63, a former chair professor in the Department of Ocean Science at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and his friend Priscilla Lam Pui-ling, 60, jointly face one count of conspiracy for a public servant to accept an advantage, the South China Morning Post reported.

Liu also faces two additional counts of offering an advantage to a public servant.

The alleged offenses took place between March and May 2025, when Liu served as program director for HKUST's master's degree in environmental health and safety. He was responsible for reviewing applications and interviewing candidates for the 2025-26 academic year.

The ICAC said Liu accepted HK$40,000 (US$5,100) from Lam to help secure the student's admission. However, the applicant did not meet the program's general entry requirements and was ultimately rejected. Liu then allegedly offered red packets containing HK$5,000 and HK$1,000 to two admissions staff members in an attempt to intervene in the process, RTHK reported. Both staff members refused the money and reported the matter to the university.

Both defendants were released on bail and were due to appear at Kwun Tong Magistrates' Courts on March 18 to enter pleas.

HKUST, which ranks 6th in Asia and 44th globally in the QS World University Rankings 2026, said it cooperated fully with the investigation and maintains "zero tolerance" for any breach of the law.

The charges come as Hong Kong's universities grapple with a growing admissions integrity crisis. Police received 126 reports of suspected fraudulent academic qualifications from local universities in the first seven months of 2025 alone, SCMP reported. Between January 2022 and July 2025, 55 people were arrested in connection with fake credentials, though only six were convicted.

The scale of the problem became apparent in mid-2024, when the University of Hong Kong's business school uncovered around 30 cases of students admitted with forged documents, with the dean telling Caixin the number could eventually reach 80 to 100.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong later reported intercepting hundreds of fraudulent applications for the 2025-26 academic year, a sharp increase from roughly 10 the previous year.

The HKU investigation revealed a network of intermediaries offering guaranteed admission for fees of up to 500,000 yuan (US$73,000), with some advertising their services openly on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, according to HKFP.

In response, the ICAC was invited to review admissions procedures at all eight of Hong Kong's publicly funded universities.

Falsifying academic qualifications carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison under Hong Kong law.

The integrity concerns have surfaced at a politically sensitive moment. Hong Kong is in the midst of an ambitious push to position itself as a global education hub, with Chief Executive John Lee making international student recruitment a centerpiece of his policy agenda.

One in four students at Hong Kong's universities now comes from outside the city, and roughly 70% of academic staff are non-local, Education Secretary Christine Choi said during the inaugural "Study in Hong Kong Week" in late February.

Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the government will raise the enrollment ceiling for non-local students at publicly funded institutions from 40% to 50%, with a particular focus on students from Southeast Asia and countries participating in China's Belt and Road Initiative.

HKUST has been at the forefront of this recruitment drive. The university received nearly 20,000 non-local undergraduate applications for 2025-26, a 40% year-on-year increase, competing for approximately 800 places. Its pre-university scholars program has enrolled students from 11 countries and territories, with Thailand its third-largest cohort after Hong Kong and mainland China.

"Integrity is fundamental to the education sector and essential to Hong Kong's ambitions as an international higher education hub," the ICAC said in its statement on the Liu case.