[2022 National Audit] Even with 'Full Tuition' Payment, Enrollment Rate of New Students at Regional Universities Drops Sharply

Increase in Regional Universities Providing Scholarships Regardless of Grades or Income Levels Upon Admission
Rising Scholarship Awards Fail to Prevent Decline in Freshman Enrollment Rates at Regional Universities

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Ju-yeon] #B University in Daejeon paid 300,000 KRW to all incoming students in 2020, 1,000,000 KRW in 2021, and covered the full tuition fee this year. The support amount per person was approximately 2.6 million KRW. Nevertheless, the freshman enrollment rate decreased by 20.4%, from 78.2% in 2020 to 57.8% this year.

Although the number of local universities in Korea providing scholarships to all freshmen regardless of admission scores or other criteria is increasing, the freshman enrollment rate has significantly declined.

According to data on scholarship support for freshmen by university, submitted to Seo Dong-yong, a member of the National Assembly’s Education Committee from the Ministry of Education on the 13th, 85 universities responded that they have a scholarship system paying all admitted freshmen without specific conditions such as academic performance or income level during the recruitment period from the 2020 to 2022 academic years. Among these, 19 universities were located in the metropolitan area including Gyeonggi-do and Incheon, and 66 were non-metropolitan universities.

By university type, among the respondents, 36 were general universities and 49 were junior colleges.

There were differences in the method and scale of support provided by each university, ranging from partial tuition reductions to fixed amount payments and full tuition coverage. The average scholarship amount per freshman increased from 945,682 KRW in 2020 to 1,018,099 KRW in 2022.

Among them, the number of universities providing full tuition scholarships to all freshmen increased from 4 in 2020 to 14 in the 2022 academic year.

Despite local universities implementing scholarship systems that may seem somewhat excessive to recruit freshmen, the freshman enrollment rates of most local universities have continued to decline.

Analyzing the changes in freshman enrollment rates from 2020 to 2022 for the 85 responding universities, only 16 universities saw an increase or maintenance of enrollment rates, 34 universities experienced a decrease of 10% or less, and 35 universities saw a decrease of more than 10%. The university with the largest decrease recorded a 44.4% drop compared to 2020.

Assemblyman Seo pointed out, "Although the number of local universities recruiting freshmen by paying full tuition is increasing, the freshman enrollment rates at local universities are sharply falling." He added, "To prevent the outflow of local talent to the metropolitan area, strong enrollment regulations for metropolitan universities centered in Seoul must be prioritized. The Ministry of Education should also prepare special measures to save local universities left in existential crisis."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.