More than 10,000 foreign students overstaying visas: data

By Park Si-soo

Nearly 161,300 foreigners are studying at domestic universities and 7 percent of them, or 11,176, are overstaying their visas, justice ministry data showed on Wednesday.

It was nearly a nearly twofold increase from 5,652 in 2016 and the first time the number of foreign students with expired visas has surpassed 10,000, said Rep. Kim Hae-young of the ruling Democratic Party, who revealed the data.

Kim said some universities overlook foreign students overstaying their visas because they pay tuition fees.

Seoul takes the biggest portion (19.9 percent, or 3,024), followed by Gyeonggi Province (14.5 percent, or 2,206), North Gyeongsang Province (7.5 percent, or 1,137), North Jeolla Province (5.9 percent, or 892) and Busan (3.6 percent, or 539).

“There are many schools trying to make up for their losses with tuition fees from foreign students,” Rep. Kim said.

“But it's not a good idea to solely blame universities struggling with a declining number of students amid low birth rates, the continued challenge against tuition increases and state-driven restructuring of financially troubled universities.”