Fulbright U.S. Education Center

Private universities in Korea are preparing for declining revenues due to a persistently low birthrate, mirroring the situation in Japan, which has seen a string of bankruptcies among private colleges due to the same problem.

According to Statistics Korea on Sunday, the number of 18-year-olds in Korea inched up from 624,000 in 2005 to 701,400 in 2010 but will start dropping this year.

Sources: “Universities Brace for Dwindling Student Numbers” The Chosun Ibo, July 11, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/07/11/2011071101097.html

Has the great Korean experiment in early overseas education failed? An increasing number of students who left the country at a young age are returning home to continue their university studies here because they find it difficult to get jobs there. At the same time, the number of secondary schoolchildren going abroad is also declining.

Sources: “Overseas Study Loses Its Luster” The Chosun Ibo, May 23, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/05/23/2011052300355.html

According to the 2011 university rankings for English Language and Literature published on Thursday by ranking firm Quacquarelli Symonds, eight Korean universities ranked in the top 200.

Seoul National University came 46th, and Korea University, Sogang University, and Yonsei University between 51st and 100th. Ewha Womans University and Hanyang University were in the third 50, and Sungkyunkwan University and Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in the fourth.

Source: “8 Korean Universities Rank Among Top 200 English Literature Programs” The Chosun Ilbo, June 3, 2011
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/06/03/2011060300765.html

The number of four-year universities charging annual tuition fee over W8 million increased from 34 in 2010 to 50 this year (US$1=W1,069). Tuition at public universities rose 0.6 percent over the last year to W4.43 million, and at private universities it was up 2.29 percent to W7.69 million. Korea University’s medical school charges a hefty W12.80 million.

But with 40 percent of the country’s 16.7 million salaried workers earning only W1-2million a month, how many among the 3.5 million students can afford to pay such enormous fees?

Universities in Korea have raised their fees by 5 to 10 percent every year over the last decade, except during the economic crisis. Per-capita tuition was W2.41 million at public universities and W4.79 million at private universities in 2001 and has risen 60 to 84 percent over the last 10 years.

According to OECD statistics, tuition fees in Korea are the second highest among member nations after the U.S. But despite soaring fees, the student-to-teacher ratio remains at 32.7, which is twice the OECD average, while dormitories can admit only 17.3 percent of students. Universities need to be able to house at least 25 percent of their students. Naturally students are wondering where all of their money is being spent.

The high fees are the result of universities’ strong dependence on them. Public universities draw 40 percent of their budget from tuition fees and private universities 65 percent. School foundations should be responsible for gathering donations and contributions and investing the school’s assets to generate profits, but Korean universities have an old habit of buying up land that is not immediately needed and building memorial halls and auditoriums that cost tens of billions of won, tapping into tuitions to finance them. Many universities also appropriate fees to pay for medical insurance and pensions of their employees, which should be funded by the school foundation.

Many private universities overstate their budgets and then use the figures as reasons to hike fees, only to amass the increased revenues into their accounts and repeat the process the following year. One private university in Seoul apparently amassed W40-60 billion every year between 2004 to 2008. As of 2009, 149 private universities in Korea held W6.9 trillion. As long as this practice persists, it will be impossible to lower the tuition burden and we should stop hoping for progress in university education.

Sources: “Universities Are Charging Too Much Money for Little Benefit” The Chosun Ibo, May 2, 2011. http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/05/02/2011050201249.html

Korean Language to Be Taught at U.S. Public High School

The Chosunilbo May 19, 2011

A public high school in California will start Korean classes in the upcoming fall semester.

Dougherty Valley High School, located in the eastern part of the state, has 200 students of Korean descent, which is 10 percent of the entire student body.

A group of Korean parents whose children attend the school petitioned for the language class and held various events to introduce Korean food and culture.

The president of the parents’ association said it is also looking into starting taekwondo and Korea clubs at the school.

Arirang News / May 19, 2011 11:23 KST

(Seoul-Yonhap News) According to the KEDI annual report on 2010 Korea educational statistics, the total number of Korean elementary and secondary school students who studied abroad during the 2009 academic year (March 2009-February 2010) was 18,118. This number represents a 33.7% decrease compared to the previous year. The number for the 2008 academic year was 27,349.

Korean Elementary and Secondary School Students Studying Abroad

Graphic info:

Blue = elementary school students

Yellow = middle school students

Green = senior high school students

The Article in the Chosunilbo of May 1, 2010

 English fluency is very important factor for a job in Korea companies and increased number of companies use English for their intranet boards, meeting and reports. Workers go to English-language schools to improve their English skills during lunch time or after work. The English divide between those who can speak English and those who cannot deepens.

The Article in the Korea Herald of December 12, 2010

The president of the Korea Education and Research Information Service (KERIS) advocated the active use of ICT (Information & Communication Technology) in classrooms. It has proven its value so far in improving learning effects, especially in rural areas which formerly experienced a great lack of schools, teachers and other educational contents. The ICT projects led by KERIS included the digital textbooks and the U-learning classroom system, both of which are under test run in Korea.

He said that ICT is not to substitute the role of teachers or of schools but to seek what they could not do. It is nevertheless an effective tool to open up new views and ground, through which teachers and students may discover a whole new perspective of learning. He also said that, as the field of ICT is still relatively new to the world, its impacts may not be as easily predictable, making many reluctant to embrace the idea fully when it comes to education. Korea, with its excellence both in ICT and in education, should offer the world a leading example in what a combination of both may achieve.

This post is prompted by an article in The Korea Times today entitled “Online College Fairs Benefit Students Overseas.” If only it were that simple!

The fact is that the emerging information age, with all of the information potentially placed at one’s fingertips via the internet, both fixed and mobile, is no panacea.  It does not do away with older media or eliminate the need for face-to-face interaction.  It most certainly does not lessen the importance of a localized, Korean-language approach in recruitment of students here in South Korea.  Moreover, a new online or “virtual” fair, like the one being promoted in The Korea Times article, does not automatically confer trust, credibility or prestige on that entity.

On that cautionary note, and partly because of it I should tell you that we at Fulbright Korea, in cooperation with EducationUSA, have decided to launch our own virtual study in the U.S.A. fair in the Spring of 2011.   Our virtual fair will draw on the new power of the internet and digital media, but its value will not rely exclusively on them.  We will be  publishing the basic structure and format of the fair within a matter of weeks and it will be announced, with fanfare, in this blog.  Please consider this the first of several posts, intended to create a dialogue with our many current and prospective U.S. partners, on just what can and cannot be accomplished in cyberspace, or with a virtual fair.

Please consider this short post an open invitation to send in your questions and suggestions.

James F. Larson, Ph.D.
Deputy Director
Fulbright Commission, Seoul

The New York Times online edition has a front-page story today entitled “Traffic Picks Up in World Education.”   It is based partly on data from a new OECD report that shows more students than ever are studying abroad and that the global pattern of student flows is shifting and becoming more complex.

Although the number of students studying in the United States continues to increase, its share of the global market is falling.   The New York Times report also notes the efforts of countries like China and Korea to build world-class universities.