At 85, Korea’s oldest college graduate this year proves it’s never too late to learn

Sookmyung Women's University's oldest graduate Kim Jeong-ja, 85, left, gets a kiss from her granddaughter who flew from the United States to join her in her commencement ceremony at the university in Seoul, Friday. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul

By Lee Hae-rin

• Published Feb 27, 2026 4:39 PM KST
• Updated Feb 27, 2026 5:32 PM KST

From wartime poverty and illiteracy to college degree, Sookmyung graduate finds life blossoms with education

With a navy cap perched above her permed brown hair and a shy smile, 85-year-old Kim Jeong-ja slowly made her way up to the podium at Sookmyung Women’s University Friday.

Applause filled the auditorium at the university as she received her associate degree in social welfare from the school’s Future Education Institute, making her Korea’s oldest college degree recipient this year. She reached the milestone after seven years of study that began when she first picked up a pencil at age 78 to learn how to read and write Korean.

“This moment exists because of everything I learned here — and because of my friends who studied and cheered alongside me,” Kim said, her voice trembling with emotion in her speech.

Born in 1941 as the eldest of eight children, Kim grew up during the Korean War, when her family fled to Geoje Island to escape the conflict. “In my day, girls didn’t get to go to school. I worked until my fingernails wore off,” she recalled. She worked in households, lunch box factories and bathhouses — “anything that paid,” she said.

Like for most women at the time, education remained a distant dream. Having worked so hard to support her family and three children all her life, she underwent three surgeries for her crooked back along the way.

Her turning point came in her late 70s. She went to see her daughter off at the airport but was unable to read the gate signs. The humiliation lingered. Soon after, a summer visit to the spine hospital changed her life: on the street outside, she received a fan promoting an adult literacy school. Within months, she had enrolled.

From there, her life blossomed again. Kim learned to read and write, graduated from middle and high school programs, and became the oldest test taker of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) for the 2024 academic year. She eventually enrolled at Sookmyung Women’s University’s Future Education Institute in 2024, realizing her lifelong dream of going to the university from which her granddaughter had graduated.

For two years, she studied social welfare while managing chronic back pain and a grueling commute of more than three hours. To make her 9 a.m. classes, she left her home before dawn due to her mobility difficulties, three times a week.

“The first few months were really hard,” she said. “I couldn’t understand what the professor was saying. But by the time the first vacation came, I started to catch on. I underlined important parts and copied everything by hand when I got home.”

Unable to type, Kim wrote three-page reports by hand — each one taking her an entire day. “It was slow work,” she said, “but I didn’t want to miss a single class. You can’t relearn something once you skip it.”

She had breakfast and lunch in the classroom with classmates because she couldn’t walk to the cafeteria. Textbooks were doubled — one copy for home, another for school — because carrying them was too painful. She said younger Sookmyung students often helped her carry her backpack, walked her to the subway station and even found her a taxi after evening classes, gestures of kindness she says she will always cherish.

Even so, Kim never lost her humor. Her granddaughter, now a fellow Sookmyung alumna, often jokes, “Grandma, you’re my junior now.” To this, Kim replies, “Welcome home, sunbae (senior)!”

Through her studies, Kim discovered a passion for helping others. “I thought it was better to learn properly,” she said. “There are times I need and get welfare support myself, and I wanted to understand it.”

She also has been studying English so she can chat freely with her grandchildren living in the United States, a goal that keeps her mind as active as her heart is young.

Sookmyung President Moon Si-yeun praised Kim and her fellow graduates, aged from their 40s to 80s, for their dedication. “What you have achieved is not merely a measure of time passed,” Moon said. “It is the fruit of steadfast courage — a reminder that there is no age limit to learning.”

Kim now plans to continue studying in the institute’s child welfare studies program, pursuing a four-year bachelor’s degree. “I want to bring hope, even a small one, to children living in difficult circumstances,” she said. “I don’t know if my health will allow it, but I’ll keep holding a pencil until the day the heavens call me.”