Boarding houses could be established for Chinese teenagers who want to undertake their secondary studies in ACT high schools before attending the University of Canberra or the ANU.
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As part of the Study Canberra initiative, the ACT government is working with local universities to attract more overseas students to Canberra.
Chief Minister and Higher Education Minister Katy Gallagher said the group was looking at ways to enable more Chinese and other international students to complete high school in Canberra before attending local tertiary institutions.
"We're working with UC in particular at the moment about how we can encourage those pathways to be generated from our secondary schools into our universities,'' she said.
"So that will require us looking at different things like a boarding house, or sort of dormitory accommodation, where there are house parents.''
One option was to establish boarding facilities close to UC Senior Secondary College Lake Ginninderra.
Ms Gallagher said many Chinese families were looking to boost the chances of their children gaining admission to a good university.
"It's very, very difficult to get into a good quality Chinese university because of the numbers of people coming through restrains it,'' she said. "So having a guarantee of a university education is important.''
There are 500 full-fee paying international students enrolled in ACT government schools, and more than half are from China.
Ms Gallagher said Canberra's universities had identified China, India and Malaysia as the key growth markets from which they hoped to attract international students.
A new Study Canberra website would include sections in Mandarin.
Canberra's status as the national capital, the reputation of the ANU and UC were all regarded as selling points for attracting international students.
Ideas were being discussed for events that could help international students engage with the local community, such as an international students day. "Other big university towns have university marches and things like that,'' Ms Gallagher said.
"I'm not sure we could go down that track straight away, but I think that's something that should not be ruled out entirely.''
Ms Gallagher said a recent visit to Chinese universities had reinforced her belief that more Australian students should spend some time studying in China.
"You come away thinking we've got to equip our students to a much greater degree to participate in the Asian Century,'' she said.
