Why Vietnam's City-Center Universities Are Just a Few Buildings

Walk into a university in central HCMC or Hanoi and the first thing you notice is this: the entire school is a few buildings. Every department, tens of thousands of students, all packed inside. No lawns, no walking paths. Even the parking lot is underground.

This isn't the case everywhere in Vietnam. But in the downtown areas of Hanoi and HCMC, it's the norm.

One Building, One University

The Foreign Trade University HCMC campus covers just 5,000 square meters -- roughly half a football pitch -- yet serves thousands of students. The Hanoi main campus is better at about 2.7 hectares, but its core is a single 12-story building housing all 32 classrooms.

The University of Architecture HCMC tells the same story. The campus is a narrow strip with no room to expand. Architects had no choice but to build up -- one 8-story block, one 4-story block. Thousands of students cycle through daily, and the elevators are always jammed.

This "vertical campus" model exists for one reason: there's no land left.

Two to Five Square Meters Per Student

Vietnam's Ministry of Education requires at least 10 square meters of campus space per student. That standard is already conservative, but reality is worse. Surveys show many city-center universities provide just 2 to 5 square meters per student -- barely enough for a desk.

In Hanoi, 26 universities are clustered within the city center. Three of them sit on less than one hectare. One stretch of road in Hanoi reportedly squeezes seven universities and colleges into a single kilometer.

For comparison, National Taiwan University's main campus spans about 106 hectares. The Foreign Trade University HCMC campus is 0.5 hectares -- over 200 times smaller.

The consequences are direct: not enough library seats, no sports facilities, labs that require shift scheduling, and nowhere to hold student club activities.

Historical Baggage: How Universities Got Stuck Downtown

Many of Vietnam's prominent universities are decades or even a century old. When they were founded, they sat on the city's edge. Now they're hemmed in by high-rises and traffic. Land prices are sky-high, and expansion is out of the question.

There's another factor. Vietnam's higher education system was modeled on the Soviet Union, emphasizing narrow specialization. One university trained one type of professional, so campuses didn't need to be large. But enrollment has ballooned, interdisciplinary programs have grown, and old campuses can't keep up.

Hanoi University of Science and Technology is the largest university in the city at 26 hectares. Sounds decent, but with 35,000 students that works out to about 7 square meters per person -- still below the standard.

Vietnam Does Have Huge Campuses

Don't get the wrong idea. Vietnam has large campuses. The problem is the gap between "downtown" and "suburban."

The Vietnam National University Hanoi's Hoa Lac campus covers over 1,100 hectares. The Vietnam National University HCMC campus spans 643 hectares. Both rank among the world's largest. Da Lat University has 38 hectares, the Nong Lam University HCMC campus 120 hectares, and Vinh University 270 hectares.

But these are all in the suburbs or smaller cities. The legacy universities in central Hanoi and HCMC simply don't have the space.

A 20-Year Relocation Plan, Barely Moving

The Vietnamese government proposed a "university relocation" policy back in 2007. The plan was to move any city-center campus smaller than 2 hectares to the suburbs, with a target of at least 10 hectares per university.

Nearly two decades later, progress has been slow.

The reasons are practical. New suburban campuses sit in the middle of nowhere -- no dormitories, no restaurants, no convenience stores. Faculty don't want a two-hour commute. And many universities fear that moving to the suburbs will hurt enrollment. For students and parents, a convenient location still matters.

The current compromise: keep graduate programs and international partnerships at the old campus, and gradually shift undergraduates to suburban branches. The Foreign Trade University is building a 33-hectare campus in Bac Ninh province, set to open in 2026.

From Buildings to Campuses: A Long Road

Anyone used to sprawling campuses may be shocked by Vietnam's downtown universities. But these are products of a specific historical context, not a reflection of Vietnamese higher education overall.

The good news is that change is underway. Metro Line 5, connecting central Hanoi to Hoa Lac, is under construction. The Vietnam National University Hanoi has begun moving into its 1,000-plus-hectare new campus. The journey from cramming students into a few buildings to building modern university towns has taken Vietnam 20 years, and may take another 10. But the next generation of Vietnamese students may finally get to experience real campus life.

Sources: Vietnam.vn, VnExpress, Tuoi Tre, Giao duc Viet Nam, Dan Tri, Wikipedia