Recent Trends and Policy Directions in Korean Higher Education

This report examines recent trends in Korean higher education policy under the Yoon Suk-yeol and Lee Jae-myung administrations. Korean higher education faces a demographic crisis as the college-age population shrinks, while institutional hierarchies have intensified despite achieving a 76. 2 per cent enrollment rate in 2023. The concentration of prestigious institutions in Seoul has created a vicious cycle of regional university decline. University admissions reforms, including holistic evaluation systems, the High School Credit System, and absolute grading, have generated challenges regarding fairness, transparency, and evaluation reliability. The Yoon administration launched the Regional Innovation System & Education (RISE) and Glocal University 30 initiatives for decentralization and regional-industry collaboration. The Lee administration’s flagship “Creating 10 Seoul National Universities” project aims to develop nine regional flagship universities to Seoul National University standards through intensive investment. Additional reforms include the National Chair Professor system and enhanced lifelong education. The analysis reveals policy patterns resembling Tyack and Cuban’ s “grammar of schooling” with pendulum swings between centralization and decentralization, while Clark’s coordination triangle highlights the need to balance state authority, market mechanisms, and academic autonomy. Korea’ s experience offers lessons for nations addressing demographic decline and regional inequality in higher education.