[Opinion] For University Structural Reform to Succeed

The scale of university enrollment shortfalls for the 2021 academic year reached 40,586 students (8.6%), with 75% of the unfilled spots occurring at non-metropolitan universities. This has sparked a crisis narrative around regional universities, prompting the National Assembly's Education Committee to hastily hold a public hearing and the Ministry of Education to announce policy alternatives. In 2019, Statistics Korea projected that the university-age population (ages 18?21) for the 2021 academic year would decrease by 146,000 compared to 2020, with the 18-year-old population dropping by 35,000. This was not a sudden shortfall but a predicted one. The Ministry of Education and the National Assembly, which had been consistent in their lack of measures, are now making a fuss.

According to the Ministry of Education’s “Systematic Management and Innovation Support Strategy for Universities” announced last month, the focus appears to be more on identifying failing universities, implementing structural reforms, and ordering closures if recovery is difficult, rather than revitalizing universities through financial support. The roadmap for closures?including classification of marginal universities, consulting, structural reform promotion, compliance checks, and expedited liquidation procedures?is detailed, but there is no plan to expand higher education funding to enhance competitiveness. Although the university innovation support project will be significantly expanded and reorganized to support autonomous innovation and structural improvement, there are no concrete financial securing measures. While financial support for national universities (meaning regional national universities) will be expanded to the level of metropolitan universities or national university corporations, there was silence regarding support for private universities.

When the university financial crisis became severe and calls were made to lift the tuition freeze, the Ministry of Education responded that the tuition level perceived by parents is still high. Now, when crisis recovery measures are demanded, they have presented plans to expel failing universities. This is a typical case of evading responsibility. It seems that neither the Ministry of Education nor the National Assembly accepts responsibility for the university financial crisis. Aren’t the Ministry and the National Assembly the parties who authorized university establishment, controlled enrollment quotas, and enforced tuition freezes?

The fundamental cause of the current enrollment shortfall and financial crisis can be summarized as the Ministry of Education’s failure to actively respond to the anticipated decline in the university-age population and its neglect to expand financial support and allow tuition increases. It is not solely the Ministry’s responsibility. Even as universities lament their near-collapse, the National Assembly has produced legislation regulating tuition, forced the abolition of entrance fees, and not only blocked tuition hikes but also bears significant responsibility. These are the lawmakers who remained indifferent to the university crisis until universities in their constituencies were on the brink of collapse.

Although belated, it is fortunate that the Ministry of Education and the National Assembly are showing interest in university issues. However, their approach is misguided. The Ministry’s measures focused on non-metropolitan national universities and the National Assembly’s plan to enact a free tuition law for national universities are equally flawed. Saving national universities alone will not solve the university problem. While all universities face difficulties, private universities are in a more precarious position than national universities, and non-metropolitan universities are more vulnerable than metropolitan ones.

For university structural reform to succeed, national universities must be prioritized for restructuring, and groundbreaking support measures for private universities must be introduced. If the suggestion to reduce enrollment at financially sound national universities to save non-metropolitan private universities sounds unfair, then the idea of reducing enrollment at financially sound metropolitan private universities to save regional national universities should also sound unfair. Policies that only save national universities amount to only 30% of the solution. The current university problem is primarily a private university problem. The fact that private universities outnumber national universities in small and medium-sized cities means that the universities capable of collapsing regional economies are private universities, not national universities.

Song Ki-chang, Professor, Department of Education, Sookmyung Women’s University