Widening Gap in College Admission and Improving Equal Opportunity in South Korea

Abstract

As private education has become widespread over the last decade in South Korea, the education gap among regions and social classes has noticeably widened. The recent global financial crisis exacerbates the problem as the rich continue to utilize more private education, while the poor utilize it less. For the first time, we confirm the widening gap in academic achievement and college admission in recent years by using source materials on Korea's College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) and students admitted to Seoul National University (SNU). We also present a simple theory that suggests that, as the influence of socioeconomic background and educational environment on the entrance exam score rises over that of innate talents, labour productivity of overall society appears to decline. Controlling for student talent by using the scholastic ranking of the second year of middle school, we show that the socioeconomic status and learning environment exert a considerable influence on all college admissions criteria in this country. Finally, we discuss the importance of voluntary efforts by universities for expanding equal opportunity in higher education, as well as the government's response to the growing gap in college admissions.

Key Words:

• College admission
• equal opportunity
• education
• educational disparity

Jel Classification:

• I24
• I28
• J62
• D63

Notes

1. A negative response regarding the possibility of climbing up the social ladder has been on a constant rise from 19.8% in 2003 to 29.0% in 2006 and then to 43.0% in 2011.

2. In the CSAT, students with the stanine score 1 in mathematics accounted for 3.9% of the total. Among students from Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, stanine score 1 students accounted for 5.0% and 3.9%, respectively. Students from the six metropolitan cities and eight other provinces made up 3.5% and 3.4% of the score, respectively.

3. Busan, Daegu, Incheon, Gwangju, Daejeon and Ulsan.

4. Gangwon, Northern Chungcheong, Southern Chungcheong, Northern Jeolla, Southern Jeolla, Northern Gyeongsang, Southern Gyeongsang and Jeju.

5. The stanine score 1 achievement in the foreign language section recorded 135% for Seoul against the nationwide average, which is 45%p higher than that for the six metropolitan cities (90%). Gyeonggi province as well recorded a high percentage of 100%, or 14%p higher than the other eight provinces. Between capital and rural areas, the stanine score 1 achievement gap in the foreign language section is larger than that of the mathematics section.

6. As of 2011, admission to SNU per 10,000 persons in Seoul and the six metropolitan cities recorded 94.9 for Seoul, 43.7 for Busan, 42.9 for Daegu, 32.0 for Incheon, 56.6 Gwangju, 53.8 for Daejeon and 31.2 for Ulsan. Gyeonggi and the other eight provinces recorded 39.6 for Gyeonggi, 46.3 for Gangwon, 32.1 for Northern Chungcheong, 39.9 for Southern Chungcheong, 44.4 for Northern Jeolla, 32.7 for Southern Jeolla, 34.8 for Northern Gyeongsang, 34.1 for Southern Gyeongsang and 41.5 for Jeju.

7. As of 2000, the other eight provinces (66%) also posted a much higher percentage than Gyeonggi province (54%), but recent data shows an inverted gap of around 5%p.

8. This is the result of follow-up studies on 2,000 students across the nation who were in the third year of middle school in 2004, using the data from the Korean Education & Employment Panel. Refer to the note in Table 2 for the list of nine highly ranked universities that includes Seoul National University, Korea Univrsity, Yonsei University, etc.

9. Private education expenditure per student in the six metropolitan cities accounted for 78.2% of that in Seoul in 2003 (according to the Korea Educational Development Institute), but decreased continuously to 70.7% in 2010 (according to Statistics Korea).

10. All districts in this paper are referred to as “gu” unless otherwise noted.

11. The education administration in Seoul is composed of 11 district education offices, each of which has jurisdiction over 2 or 3 districts (gu) out of 25 autonomous districts in Seoul.

12. Achievement in foreign language shows that the percentage of the stanine score 1 in Gangnam and Seocho was 2.3 times higher than the Seoul average in 2002, most recently rising to 2.6 times. The percentage of the stanine 1 score achievement in districts with low scores accounted for only 45% of the Seoul average in 2002, recently falling further to 40%.

13. In 2011, the number of special-purpose high schools in Seoul with one or more graduates admitted to SNU totaled 15 schools, including 3 science high schools, 6 foreign language high schools, 4 art high schools, 1 gukak (traditional arts) national high school and 1 global high school.

14. In particular, the percentage of SNU freshmen from the five low-ranked school districts (Guro-gu, Geumcheon-gu, Jung-gu, Seongdong-gu and Jungnang-gu) has stayed at around 3% level.

15. A high school student in three districts near Gangnam spends 568,000 won, whereas other districts spend 381,000 won, resulting in a 1.5 times difference according to the 2010 Survey of Private Education Expenditures released by Statistics Korea.

16. For instance, the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) in the UK, TRIO programme in the USA and Higher Education Participation and Partnerships Program (HEPPP) in Australia have been introduced to assist low income families and socially vulnerable groups in gaining admission to leading universities and completing university education courses.