136 Freshmen Falsely Enrolled to Manipulate Enrollment Rate... 11 Including Gimpo University Chairman and Professors Indicted

[Asia Economy Reporter Park Hyesook] Eleven people, including the chairman of the board and professors of a junior college corporation, have been brought to trial on charges of falsely admitting about 10% of the recruitment quota to increase the freshman enrollment rate.

The Bucheon branch of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office announced on the 18th that Kimpo College corporation chairman A (72) was indicted without detention on charges of obstruction of business, obstruction of official duties by deception, forgery and use of forged electronic records.

In addition, ten others, including the former vice president of academic affairs, former head of admissions and student team, and current professors of the school, were also brought to trial on the same charges.

Chairman A and others are accused of falsely admitting 136 people, including relatives and acquaintances of faculty and staff, when recruiting freshmen at the end of February 2020 to increase the freshman enrollment rate, an important indicator of the Ministry of Education's "University Basic Competency Diagnosis Evaluation."

They are also accused of setting the freshman enrollment rate to 100% with fake students and then falsely entering the freshman recruitment results into the junior college admission information system in March of the same year, thereby obstructing the Korean Council for College Education's aggregation of freshman recruitment results.

According to the prosecution's investigation, the then vice president of academic affairs and head of admissions and student team, who had received approval from Chairman A, assigned the fake admitted students recruited by student affairs staff to professors and instructed them to pay the tuition fees on their behalf.

In fact, professors took out student loans under the names of fake admitted students or paid the admission fees out of their own pockets, and shortly thereafter, the fake admitted students withdrew.

The fake admitted students were spouses, children, nephews, brothers-in-law, etc., of faculty and staff who were instructed by the school, and among them were graduate students unlikely to be admitted as junior college freshmen and elderly people in their 60s.

The police sent only eight professors to prosecution last August on charges including obstruction of business, but after reviewing the case records, the prosecution judged that it was likely an organized crime by the school. Subsequently, they conducted a search and seizure of the university chairman's office and uncovered additional charges against Chairman A and the former vice president of academic affairs.

A prosecution official said, "Manipulating the freshman enrollment rate is an admission fraud crime that undermines the university basic competency diagnosis system, which aims to induce voluntary restructuring of universities due to the declining school-age population," and added, "Although the chairman of the school corporation is not allowed to be involved in the university's academic administration, the chairman of this university violated laws and led the false admissions by directly receiving reports and giving instructions related to admissions work."