Moalims

SEOUL: After years of heading abroad in droves to study, more young South Koreans are opting for education at home as expensive overseas degrees no longer provide an edge in a tough job market - and are even a liability.

Recruiters and students say the improving quality of domestic education, including in English, means the premium placed on a foreign education is not what it was in a country known for its intense focus on academic achievement.

At the same time, connections cultivated at home through school and university play a factor in landing a job and getting ahead.

“Domestic graduates’ capacity has increased, so now businesses no longer blindly prefer overseas graduates,” said Lee Young-mi, senior executive director at headhunting firm Careercare.

South Korea trails only China and India when it comes to sending students to the United States, but the number has been declining for four years, according to the Institute of International Education (IIE).

The overall number of South Koreans studying abroad at college level or above peaked in 2011 at 262,465, accounting for 6.7 percent of those in higher education; it fell last year to 214,696, or 5.8 percent of the total, government figures show.

The drop is especially sharp for younger students: the number of primary- or secondary-school Koreans who went abroad for study was 10,907 last year, a nearly two-thirds decline from the 2006 peak.

Kim Dong-jin, an adjunct professor at Kookmin University in Seoul and the former head of recruiting at LG Electronics Inc, said Korean employers still valued applicants with prestigious foreign MBAs or advanced degrees, but there was less demand for overseas-trained undergraduates.

This was partly because people emerging from the Korean system came with a useful network of connections, he said.

“Domestic students have a lot of support from their school, their seniors, as well as through government programmes,” he said.

Overseas-educated Koreans, on the other hand, can have a harder time fitting into a hierarchical South Korean workplace.

“They are individualistic, which makes it hard for them to adapt to the Korean business culture,” he said.

The high cost of studying abroad is another reason more Koreans choose education at home, especially amid a sluggish economy with high youth unemployment and household debt.

Average tuition for the current school year at four-year US private institutions is $32,405, and $23,893 at public institutions for out-of-state students, according to the College Board.

That excludes living and travel costs. Average tuition at South Korean universities is 6.67 million won ($5,812), according to the Korean Council for University Education.

Fiona Mazurenko, marketing manager at the University of Texas at Austin’s international office, said the number of Korean students there had fallen since 2010.

News Reference