Jung Min-ho has worked as a staff writer at The Korea Times since 2012, mostly covering social and political issues. He currently belongs to the Politics & City Desk where he covers topics such as health, labor and human rights. Prior to joining the team, he was responsible for covering North Korea and sports. His article about a biosecurity breach of Middle East respiratory syndrome won him an award from the Korea Science Journalists Association in 2016. He is also the co-author of the book, "Medical Pioneers of Korea" (2019). He served as the head of the international relations committee at the Journalists Association of Korea from 2021 to 2023.
Demographic decline puts dozens of universities at risk, experts warn
The walls of the main building of Seonghwa University are stained and neglected, in this July 2024 file photo. The school was closed in 2012. Korea Times photo by Kim Jin-young
By Jung Min-ho
Quota cuts, restructuring urgently needed for campuses built to enroll 500,000 students
As Korea’s annual number of first graders is projected to fall below 300,000 for the first time this year, experts warn that higher-education institutions across the country are headed for a brutal shakeout, with many unlikely to survive the coming decade.
Experts say the steep decline in births seen since the 2000s is now moving into the school system, with the number of children entering elementary school set to decrease even faster between now and 2030 than it did from 2020 to 2025. This means the current crisis is “only the beginning” of a much deeper contraction in the student population ― and its impact will shake the higher education system profoundly, they added.
Their warning on Wednesday comes a day after a report by the Ministry of Education, which projected that elementary schools nationwide are expected to enroll 298,178 new students this March. This figure is far short of the 450,000 to 500,000 new students that universities and two-year colleges are built to enroll each year, with many already struggling to fill their quotas. According to government data, there are 331 universities and colleges in total as of 2025. Since 2000, 22 schools have been closed.
Demographic experts warn that the impact will be uneven and could deepen regional inequality.
“Universities and colleges in the greater capital area alone have an intake capacity of about 180,000 students, while roughly 250,000 children are being born currently. If 70 percent of them go to college and they all flock to the capital region, that’s it ― regional universities will simply vanish,” Lee Sang-lim, a demography expert at the Population Policy Research Center at Seoul National University, told The Korea Times.
Lee predicts that in some provinces “only about five, or even just three universities will be able to survive,” making early intervention essential. Rather than letting institutions collapse one by one through brutal market competition, he insisted, the government should “move quickly to adjust before they collapse,” in order to minimize the social and regional damage from the coming contraction.
“What we are seeing now is only the start,” said Yi In-sill, president of the Korean Peninsula Population Institute for Future. “Restructuring measures can act like painkillers to lessen the symptoms, but the pain itself is unavoidable.”
Citing a recent survey of 116 presidents of universities at the Korean Council for University Education’s general assembly, she pointed out that more than 60 percent of them expect over 30 four-year institutions to close within the next 10 years.
A student stands before the main building of an elementary school in Wonju, Gangwon Province, in this February 2023 file photo. Korea Times photo by Choi Joo-yeon
Experts say the most urgent task would be adjusting enrollment quotas. But this has proved to be challenging. School employees protest restructuring because closing departments or campuses and cutting faculty directly threaten their jobs and careers. For students, it raises concerns about the value of their degrees and their future opportunities.
Another hurdle is the legal and financial framework surrounding private universities, which makes meaningful restructuring extremely difficult. Yi notes that the current private school law was designed decades ago to stop owners from siphoning off funds, but in practice, it has “effectively shut off” the option for private universities to voluntarily close, even when their numbers no longer add up. She argues that tuition regulations should also be loosened so schools can raise fees where necessary, while increasing targeted scholarships for low-income students instead of holding down tuition for everyone.
A related debate centers on the rising reliance on foreign students, where the two experts place different emphasis. Yi views the recent surge in international enrollment, boosted by the global popularity of Korean culture and the government’s “glocal university” agenda, as a meaningful opportunity, while still arguing that weaker institutions should be allowed to close and stronger ones to grow rather than all relying on the same tactic to survive. Lee is more guarded, saying that increasing foreign student numbers is not a long-term solution, characterizing such policies as temporary measures that keep struggling universities afloat without addressing their underlying problems.