Zhuhai and the Greater Bay Area education hub: campuses, costs and cross-border study

Zhuhai: the campus town

Zhuhai, on the coast across the water from Macao, China, has become a university town: Sun Yat-sen University, Beijing Normal University, Beijing Institute of Technology and Jinan University all operate campuses here, as does the English-taught United International College (UIC).

The city is small, clean, coastal and cheap, with a much quieter social scene than Guangzhou. For a first-year international student it is an easy place to land.

Shenzhen: the research and industry hub

Shenzhen hosts the graduate schools of Peking and Tsinghua universities, the Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen campus, the Southern University of Science and Technology and Sun Yat-sen University's new Shenzhen campus. The focus is technology, and the industry access is unmatched anywhere in China.

Costs are higher than Zhuhai but still below Shanghai, and the metro system is new and efficient.

Cross-border study options

Hong Kong, China is 15 minutes from Futian by high-speed rail and Macao, China is a short coach ride from Zhuhai, which makes regional summer schools, library sharing and conference attendance straightforward. Several Greater Bay Area programmes include mandatory exchange semesters in Hong Kong, China or Macao, China.

Note that crossing the border requires a separate entry permit and, depending on your nationality, a visa for Hong Kong, China or Macao, China. Your Chinese study residence permit does not automatically grant you entry to either.

Choosing between them

Choose Zhuhai if you want a quiet, cheap, coastal first year and are willing to move later. Choose Shenzhen if your field is engineering, computer science or design and you want industry access. Choose Guangzhou if you want medicine, business or law at Sun Yat-sen University, or engineering at SCUT, with the region's largest expatriate community.