Morrison Academy Kaohsiung is the Kaohsiung campus of Morrison Academy, a Christian school system founded in Taiwan in 1952 to educate the children of missionaries, and it differs from the city's other international schools by gating admission twice. Like the other foreign schools it requires a foreign passport, so a family holding only Taiwanese nationality is not eligible. It also runs a faith-based priority: children of missionaries first, children of other Christian workers second, all other children third. A family outside the first two tiers can apply and is considered in earnest, but only against the places that remain. Knowing where you stand in that order is where a family starts with this school.
Two facts correct common misunderstandings. The Kaohsiung campus runs the full kindergarten to Grade 12, not the limited span older listings still show: it added Grade 9 in 2000 and Grades 10 to 12 in 2013, so a family can keep a child here through graduation. And it is an American, Advanced Placement school with a Christian worldview woven through it, not an IB school, with Bible a required subject at every grade and weekly chapel required of every student whatever their background. This guide sets out the two gates, the fees the school publishes in full, and an honest account of what a Christ-centerd school asks of a family.
The families who ask us about Morrison Kaohsiung are usually foreign-passport families for whom the Christian character is either the reason they are drawn to it or a question they want to weigh honestly. It is a small school, around 235 students with a high school of roughly 100, which some families want and others find limiting. Its faith expectations are concrete: Bible and chapel fill part of every child's week. The questions we hear are about fit as much as academics, whether the school suits a child who is not from a Christian family, how the small high school compares with the larger schools in the city, and how the priority tiers affect a family's chances.
We work with Kaohsiung families remotely from our base in Taipei, the same way we teach families across roughly eight countries, and Kaohsiung is about ninety minutes away by high-speed rail for a family that prefers some sessions in person. Morrison expects strong English at entry, more so than some schools, and does not admit a middle or high school student whose English is well below grade level, so readiness matters more here than most. What we help with is the academic English and the writing and analysis that an American college-preparatory program and its AP courses assume, whatever system a child is arriving from.
The orienting facts, each drawn from Morrison's own materials and checked in September 2026. Figures are the school's own, in New Taiwan dollars. Where a fact is set for the whole Morrison system rather than the Kaohsiung campus, this guide says so.
Morrison Academy is a non-profit Christian school system, and the Kaohsiung campus is one of three K to 12 campuses alongside Taichung and Taipei. It is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges and by the Association of Christian Schools International, held across the system, currently through 2027, and registered with Taiwan's Ministry of Education as a foreign school. It teaches an American curriculum with Advanced Placement, not the IB. And it publishes its fees in full, which is why this guide can carry them.
Morrison publishes a full fee schedule for each campus. Tuition is billed per semester, and the annual figure is double the per-semester rate. The tables below are the Kaohsiung campus's own figures for the 2025 to 2026 year, in New Taiwan dollars. A 2026 to 2027 schedule is published but could not be verified from the school's own document, so this guide carries the confirmed 2025 to 2026 figures.
Because Morrison exists to serve Christian workers, its discounts are large and central to what many families pay: a missionary family receives up to 60 percent off tuition and specified fees, and a family in other Christian work up to 50 percent. A family outside those categories pays the full published fee. There is no refundable deposit, and the registration fee is non-refundable. Tuition is billed each semester, so the annual figure is twice the rate shown.
Billed each semester. Annual is double. Before any missionary or Christian-worker discount.
| Grade band | Per semester | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten to Grade 5 | NT$229,000 | NT$458,000 |
| Grades 6 to 8 | NT$250,000 | NT$500,000 |
| Grades 9 to 12 | NT$282,000 | NT$564,000 |
Source: Morrison Academy Kaohsiung 2025 to 2026 fee schedule. Checked September 2026. Morrison sets a separate schedule for each campus, so these are Kaohsiung's figures, not the system's or Taichung's.
| Item | Amount | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| Registration fee | NT$30,000 | Annual, non-refundable |
| Building fee | NT$17,500 per semester | NT$35,000 a year |
| Entrance fee, first-time student | NT$30,000 | One time |
| Application testing fee | NT$3,500 | Per test, when a place exists at the grade |
| English language support | Fee applies | Kindergarten to Grade 8, where admission depends on it |
| Learning support, per semester | NT$7,800 to NT$60,250 | By assessed level of need |
| Missionary discount | Up to 60 percent | On tuition and specified fees |
| Christian-worker discount | Up to 50 percent | On tuition and specified fees |
| Refundable deposit | None | No refundable deposit or bond |
For a new Grade 9 student in 2025 to 2026 with no discount, tuition of NT$564,000 for the year plus the building fee of NT$35,000, the registration fee of NT$30,000, and the one-time entrance fee of NT$30,000 comes to NT$659,000 before lunch and other options. A missionary or Christian-worker family would pay substantially less after the discount. These totals are Harland's arithmetic on the school's own figures, shown so a family can budget the real first year rather than the tuition line alone.
| Grades served | Kindergarten to Grade 12, on one Dashe District campus. A high school of around 100 |
|---|---|
| Enrollment | 235 at the Kaohsiung campus as of August 2026, the school's own figure. Around 250 on another of its pages |
| Curriculum | American, Bible-integrated, college-preparatory. Not an IB school. Mandarin taught daily in K to 8, optional in high school |
| Advanced Placement | Eight AP courses in person at Kaohsiung, alongside online courses. 63 courses in total |
| Graduate credential | An American high school diploma. Twenty-four credits to graduate, including Bible each year of attendance |
| Accreditation | WASC since 1977 and ACSI since 1998, held across the system, currently through 2027 |
| Admissions | Rolling, opening 1 November for the following year. No first-come waiting list. Every family interviewed |
| English | Strong English expected. Grades 6 to 12 more than one grade level below average are not eligible |
| Eligibility | Foreign passport required. Faith-based priority: missionaries, then Christian workers, then all others |
| Boarding | None at Kaohsiung. Homestays only. Boarding is at Taichung |
Where a fact is set for the whole Morrison system, this guide labels it system-wide. Morrison's own pages give two slightly different Kaohsiung student counts, 235 and around 250, and both are shown rather than merged. Boarding is a Taichung fact and is not attributed to Kaohsiung.
Morrison's purpose is stated plainly in its own history, and it explains both the Christian character and the admissions priorities a family encounters.
Morrison Academy began in Taichung in 1952 as a school for the children of missionaries, six children and a teacher in a bamboo hut, and took the name Morrison in honor of Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China. The Kaohsiung campus opened in 1974 as a kindergarten-to-Grade-8 school after the American Department of Defense school in the city closed, beginning with thirty-three students and three teachers near Cheng Ching Lake, and moved to its present six-million-dollar campus in Dashe District, completed in 2000. Grade 9 followed that year and Grades 10 to 12 in 2013, giving Kaohsiung a full high school so that families no longer had to send a child to board in Taichung. The system is governed by the Morrison Christian Association, a non-profit historically supported by mission agencies.
Its purpose, in its own words, is to meet the educational needs of the children of missionaries throughout Taiwan, and its core values begin with following Jesus Christ and proclaiming God's truth alongside pursuing excellence in student learning and educating the whole person. The school holds a detailed Statement of Faith, and it is worth being precise about what that binds: the teachers, who must affirm it, not applicant families, who sign no faith statement and provide no pastor's reference. The faith dimension for families works through the admissions priorities, not a test of belief. This is a school with an explicit, integrated Christian mission. For many of its families that is the point. For others it is a real consideration.
Morrison teaches an American, standards-based curriculum leading to Advanced Placement, taught in English and integrated with a Christian worldview, with Bible as a required subject throughout.
The curriculum is American and college-preparatory across all grades, taught in English apart from the language classes, with a biblical worldview woven through the subjects. Bible is a required subject in every grade and weekly chapel is required of every student, with no opt-out. Whatever a family's own beliefs, that shapes the school day and should weigh in the decision. Mandarin is taught daily in kindergarten to Grade 8 and is optional in high school, and Spanish is offered, but this is an English-medium school rather than a bilingual one, and a family whose priority is a bilingual Chinese education would look instead at the open-gate school, I-Shou International School. Graduation requires twenty-four credits, including one Bible unit for each year a student attends.
The Kaohsiung high school is small and offers eight Advanced Placement courses in person, out of sixty-three courses in total, with further courses available online, one online course a semester covered by tuition. Morrison is a test center for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT. It is not an IB school, so a family that specifically wants the International Baccalaureate is looking at the wrong school and should weigh Kaohsiung American School, which runs the IB inside an American-diploma school. The distinction to hold is that Morrison offers Advanced Placement inside an explicitly Christian program. Choosing between it and the city's other American-style school turns as much on that Christian character, and on scale, as on the qualifications.
Morrison publishes its graduate outcomes at the system level rather than by campus, so a family should read them as Morrison-wide and ask the Kaohsiung campus for its own record.
Morrison reports college-attendance data for its graduates in its annual report, covering the whole system and not the Kaohsiung campus alone, and its graduation standard is twenty-four credits with a full complement of English, social studies, mathematics, science, and Bible. Because Kaohsiung's own high school profile, with its campus-specific university destinations and AP results, is published as a document this guide could not read in full, this guide does not put a Kaohsiung-specific matriculation figure or destination list on the page. That is a deliberate choice: a system-wide number presented as if it were the Kaohsiung campus's would be the kind of misattribution this guide is careful to avoid.
What can be said with confidence is that Morrison is a long-accredited American college-preparatory school whose graduates hold a US high school diploma and progress to universities in the United States and beyond, and that its small classes, capped at twenty-five per grade in the high school, mean a close teaching environment. A family that wants the specific numbers, the Kaohsiung campus's own recent destinations and AP participation, should ask the school directly for its current high school profile, and we would encourage that rather than relying on a figure drawn from the wider system.
Beyond the gates, the process is orderly and personal. Applications open on 1 November for the following year and can be submitted at any time, though the school advises applying before the end of March, with testing and interviews falling in April and May. A family applies online, submitting passport copies for the child and both parents and two years of school records translated into English, and the school assesses English proficiency, which for a child from a non-English school is standard and may be waived for one already thriving in an all-English school. Every family is interviewed by a member of the admissions committee, with virtual interviews for families outside Taiwan, and a decision follows within three working days of the interview. There is no first-come waiting list: where a grade is full, an application is held and all applicants for that grade are considered together when admissions close.
Two practical points. English is a real threshold here, more than at some schools: a student in Grades 6 to 12 whose English is more than one grade level below average is not eligible, and an English-language learner is admitted only where there is a reasonable prospect of reaching grade level within three years, with three chances to sit the assessment. And the school is candid that it does not knowingly admit a non-missionary student with significant learning needs, and cannot serve profound needs, so a family should disclose any past evaluation fully. Entry is possible at any grade where a place exists, including Grade 12, and age cut-offs follow the standard pattern, a child reaching the grade's age by the first of September.
Harland is not a school and does not replace Morrison. We are a 1-on-1 tutoring academy, and we work with Kaohsiung families remotely from Taipei, in the three places the schooling decision creates real work for a family: meeting the English threshold, the school years, and university.
Two conditions apply. A child must hold a passport from a country other than Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, or Macau, with narrow exceptions, so ROC-only nationals are not eligible. And admission runs in priority tiers: children of missionaries first, children of other Christian workers second, all other children third. A third-tier family can apply and is considered against places remaining after the first two tiers.
Yes. Despite older listings that show a limited span, the Kaohsiung campus runs the full kindergarten to Grade 12, having added Grade 9 in 2000 and Grades 10 to 12 in 2013. Its high school is small, around 100 students, so a family can keep a child in Kaohsiung through graduation rather than move to the Taichung campus.
Advanced Placement, not the IB. Morrison is an American-curriculum Christian school, and the Kaohsiung high school offers eight AP courses in person alongside online courses. Bible is a required subject at every grade and weekly chapel is required of all students, whatever their background.
For 2025 to 2026, tuition is billed per semester: NT$229,000 for kindergarten to Grade 5, NT$250,000 for Grades 6 to 8, and NT$282,000 for Grades 9 to 12, so roughly NT$458,000 to NT$564,000 a year, plus a NT$17,500 per semester building fee and a NT$30,000 annual registration fee. Missionary families receive up to 60 percent off tuition and other Christian workers up to 50 percent. There is no refundable deposit.
A family applies online with passport copies and two years of school records in English, the school assesses English proficiency, and every family is interviewed. A decision follows within three working days of the interview. Applications open on 1 November for the following year, and the school advises applying before the end of March. Entry is possible at any grade where a place exists.
Our Student Coordinator speaks with Kaohsiung families regularly, and can help you think through the two eligibility gates, the school's Christian character, and how to prepare a child for an English threshold that is higher than most. We work with families remotely from Taipei. We start by listening.