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Students will be able to finish their coursework remotely.

The University of NSW is also helping students studying at Hong Kong universities where courses have been cancelled to return to Australia.

A small number of Australian National University student who were in Hong Kong have left, others are in the process of leaving and the university has decided not to send exchange students to the city next semester.

Several Melbourne universities have also urged their students to come home.

A spokesman for the University of Melbourne said it had eight exchange students in Hong Kong this semester.

"Five students have already left and we have requested that the remaining three students also depart now that remaining classes for the semester have been cancelled. The university is providing support and assistance to the students," he said.

Three students from Melbourne's La Trobe University studying at the City University of Hong Kong - which has ceased teaching - are receiving assistance to return to Australia.

At Polytechnic University on Thursday, toll booths were twice set on fire after riot police shot tear gas at students firing arrows that morning.

In a dramatic clash on Tuesday night, police fired more than 1000 flaming tear gas canisters and rubber bullets on a bridge at Chinese University. More than 60 students were injured.

And on Wednesday, mainland Chinese students were evacuated from Hong Kong university campuses by boat and bus after a night of clashes between riot police and protesters turned the Chinese University of Hong Kong campus into a battlefield.

Late on Thursday night, it was confirmed that a 70-year-old cleaner had died, after being hit in the head with a brick by protesters amid a clash between pro Beijing and pro-democracy groups in Sheung Shui on Wednesday.

- with Kirsty Needham