ed Reluctant to leave school

College graduation is supposed to be an occasion filled with hope and excitement ― the first step into society and a prosperous future. But this has not been the case recently in Korea where nearly half of graduates cannot secure jobs. Even the other fortunate half often find themselves in jobs they don’t like or those which do not require college diploma.

So, many of these jobless graduates ― almost 20 percent of them in 2014 ― opted to stay in school by putting off graduation. By retaining student status, they can use libraries, prepare for recruitment exams together and, most importantly, avoid being referred to as unemployed youths.

Even that will likely be difficult this year because some colleges are moving to force students to register for at least one course, paying about 500,000 won ($450) in tuition on average.

These steps are not entirely incomprehensible because the schools have to spend extra maintenance cost because of what they call the ``NG (no graduation) tribes,” who also cause inconvenience to their juniors. If so, however, these schools had better ban the postponement of graduation instead of selling the student status for money. If a university has about 3,000 such students, it can increase revenue by 1.5 billion won.

The colleges, including Ewha Womans, Konkuk and Sogang, are advised to drop this pitiless idea.

Koreans are well aware of how the nation’s private universities have been bold about raising tuition and stingy in making investments for their students. They must be able to shoulder additional costs. The school foundations are also loath to see their number of students per professor rise because of these graduates refusing to leave schools, which will pull down their places in the education ministry’s college rankings that in turn are closely linked available government subsidies.

Few Koreans are so naïve any longer as to expect universities to remain as ivory towers, but these schools should try to at least avoid appearing like as heartless profit-seekers as greedy businesses. The education ministry is not free from blame either, if it just sits and watches these schools virtually discontinue deferred graduation, because it was the government that introduced this system in the aftermath of the financial crisis to make the youth unemployment rate seem lower than it actually was.

As always, however, employers hold the key in rectifying the rather abnormal practice of refusing to graduate, by ceasing to discriminate against graduates. Currently, most companies prefer undergraduates in providing opportunities for internships, participation in various contests, or even job interviews.

They should stop this unreasonable and discriminatory employment practice. It is society as a whole ― schools, industry and government ― that should keep what they say is best-educated and most-prepared generation in the nation’s history from remaining in colleges for an extra year or even two.

Korea’s future depends on how it can get these graduates out of the campus and into the job market ― as soon as they finish courses.