Universities need to do more to support international students
International students walk across the campus of a university in Seoul, Sept. 10. Yonhap
Foreign faculty emerges as weak spot in university globalization
Internationalization is no longer an option for Korean universities but a necessity for their survival, as the nation’s higher education system faces an unprecedented structural transformation.
Yet The Korea Times University Rankings 2027 reveal a stark reality: Korean universities still have a long way to go to achieve full-fledged internationalization.
Universities have met the basic requirements for internationalization. But investment in faculty recruitment and student support has failed to keep pace with the increasing number of international students, while graduate outcomes remain weak.
The Korea Times launched the university rankings last year to assess the level of internationalization among domestic universities.
This year’s rankings covered 60 universities using 19 indicators in four categories: education, research, student support and graduate outcomes.
Universities were assessed on a 200-point scale, with 70 points allocated to education, 50 points to research, 40 points to student support and 40 points to graduate outcomes.
The education category saw the strongest overall performance, with the 60 universities averaging 35.97 points out of 70, 51.4 percent of the maximum possible score. Scores also varied less widely than in the other three categories.
The figures show that Korean universities have made tangible progress in recruiting international students and providing them with educational programs. Yet they still have room for improvement in the education category.
The newly introduced indicator measuring the proportion of international full-time faculty showed relatively weak performance, with universities averaging 33.3 percent of the maximum possible score.
The indicator suggests that most universities have yet to hire a sufficient number of international faculty members, despite the increase in international students.
The Korea Times evaluation team noted that a university’s efforts to hire international faculty can serve as an indicator of its broader commitment to internationalization.
Another problem is the low proportion of research funding from overseas sources.
In the research category, the 60 universities averaged 22.31 points out of 50, equivalent to 44.6 percent of the maximum possible score. Performance was notably weaker in the share of research funding from overseas sources, where universities averaged 27.4 percent of the maximum.
This suggests that only a small number of universities have developed international research networks capable of securing research funding from abroad.
Notably, 22 of the 60 universities were found to have received no research funding from foreign governments or overseas institutions.
To address this problem, experts recommend that universities forge substantive research partnerships with international research institutions and companies to attract research funding from overseas.
Universities were also found to have made insufficient efforts to support international students.
Performance was relatively weak in the student support category, with universities averaging 14.84 points out of 40, 37.1 percent of the maximum possible score.
This raises questions about whether universities have established adequate financial support and other systems to help international students continue their studies and establish stable lives in Korea.
Graduate outcomes showed the weakest overall performance, with universities averaging 12.85 points out of 40, 32.1 percent of the maximum possible score — the lowest among the four categories. The category also recorded the widest gap in scores across universities.
The education category measures the “entrance” — how well universities are equipped to recruit international students. By contrast, the graduate outcomes category measures the “exit” — how successfully these students transition into society after graduation.
This year’s assessment shows that the gap between universities is narrowing at the entrance but remains wide at the exit.
The findings demonstrate that universities have established systems to attract international students, but financial investment to help them remain enrolled, complete their studies and successfully transition after graduation has yet to reach a sufficient level.
The paradigm of university internationalization is shifting from “how many international students a university can attract” to “how well it can help them graduate.”
To better evaluate the internationalization of Korean higher education, The Korea Times plans to expand the scope of next year’s assessment by adding indicators on settlement infrastructure for international faculty and students as well as international research diversity.
From 2028 onward, it also plans to further broaden the evaluation to include satisfaction surveys of international students and tracking of the outcomes of international graduates.