Higher education becoming increasingly polarised

The majority of students currently enrolled at Korea’s prestigious universities such as Ewha Women’s University, Pohang University of Science and Technology and Korea University come from affluent families within the top 20% income bracket, statistics show, writes Park Soo-jin for The Hankyoreh.

As polarisation of education according to income gradually becomes more severe, some are suggesting the need to take some kind of action. According to a document from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology that analyses the family income of applicants for government scholarships in the first semester of 2012 (excluding vocational schools and distance education), more than half of the students who applied for scholarships at 11 universities were in the eighth highest income bracket or above.

“We already have a lot of evidence that the educational gap according to income is quite serious, such as statistics showing that many high scorers on the college university entrance live in Gangnam,” said Lim Eun-hui, a researcher at the Korean Higher Education Research Institute. “These latest figures show the same thing is happening in university admissions.”
Full report on the Hankyoreh site