'Endemic Impact' Causes 77.1% Drop in University Remote Lectures... Enrollment Also Plummets 65.3%

'Announcement of the "2023 June University Information Disclosure Analysis Results"
14.9% of General University Entrants Selected through Opportunity Balance Admission'

The number of remote lectures conducted by universities has significantly decreased due to the transition of COVID-19 to an endemic (a disease established as a local epidemic). This is because most universities have resumed face-to-face classes.

On the 30th, the Ministry of Education and the Korea Council for University Education (KCUE) announced the "June 2023 University Information Disclosure Analysis Results," which included this information.

In this regular disclosure, the status of industry-academia cooperation, freshman admission results, lecturer lecture fees, and more were revealed for a total of 411 institutions, including 193 four-year general and education universities and 132 junior colleges.

Due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection, universities have postponed the start of the semester and are conducting classes online. On the 17th, a university student is participating in a live online class at a cafe in Yonsei University, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jinhyung Kang aymsdream@

First, the number of university remote lectures, which had significantly increased in 2020 due to COVID-19, decreased by 77.1% to 38,769 last year compared to the previous year (169,174). The number of attendees also dropped by 65.3% to 2,678,000 last year from 7,713,000 the previous year.

Among the 332,483 freshmen enrolled this year in general and education universities, the proportion of students selected through opportunity-equalizing admissions such as basic livelihood security recipients, students from rural fishing villages, graduates of specialized high schools, and balanced opportunity admissions was 14.9% (49,462 students), up 0.6 percentage points from last year (12.7%, 47,431 students).

The opportunity-equalizing admission rate was higher at national and public universities (20.1%) than at private universities (13.3%), and higher at non-metropolitan universities (18.0%) than at metropolitan universities (10.6%).

Looking at the high school types of this year’s university freshmen, general high schools accounted for 73.7%, autonomous high schools 9.7%, specialized high schools 6.5%, special-purpose high schools 4.3%, and others such as gifted schools, GED, foreign high schools, foreigner schools, alternative schools, and accredited lifelong education facilities accounted for 5.6%.

The total number of contract departments this year was 237, an increase of 3.9% from last year (228). The number of students also increased by 3.5% to 8,299 from 7,986 last year.

Contract departments are departments that establish and operate special curricula according to industry demands. They include recruitment condition-type departments, where students can be hired after completing the special curriculum, and re-education-type departments for retraining industry employees.

The number of recruitment condition-type contract departments was 44, down 24.1% from last year (58), and the number of students was 2,436, a 19.3% decrease from 3,018 last year.

The number of re-education-type contract departments remained the same at 170, while the number of students decreased by 5.0% to 4,746 from 4,998 last year.

The average lecturer lecture fee per hour in universities for the first semester this year was 68,600 KRW, up 1.6% from last year (67,500 KRW).

The average lecturer lecture fee at national and public universities was 91,200 KRW, up 1.9% from last year (89,500 KRW), while private universities saw a slight increase of 0.1% to 56,500 KRW.

Among the 136,671 freshmen enrolled in junior colleges this year, the proportion of students admitted through opportunity-equalizing admissions was 3.1% (4,187 students), down 0.1 percentage points from last year (34,448 students).

By high school type for junior college freshmen, general high schools accounted for 58.5%, specialized high schools 22.8%, autonomous high schools 4.4%, special-purpose high schools 1.8%, and others such as gifted schools, GED, foreign schools, alternative schools, and accredited lifelong education facilities accounted for 12.5%.

The average lecturer lecture fee per hour for junior colleges in the first semester this year was 32,460 KRW, a slight decrease of 0.1% from last year (32,500 KRW).

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