No. of Korean students in China down 64% over two years in 2022

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The number of South Korean students studying abroad has declined to the lowest level in five years as demand for foreign academic qualifications in the labor market has gone down.

Human resources officials at Korean companies note that experiences of studying abroad as exchange students or obtaining foreign degrees of bachelor’s and master’s degrees alone cannot be evidence of professional skills for job applicants.

High proficiency in foreign languages has also become less competitive as young Koreans have built better language skills.

In the past, job applicants with foreign academic backgrounds stood out because they were few in number. However, today‘s labor market has seen a rise in the number of those with various foreign experiences.

Geopolitical dynamics have also contributed to the decline.

China has experienced the most significant decline in the number of Korean students amid the deteriorating tension between Seoul and Beijing.

According to data released by the Ministry of Education and the Korean Educational Development Institute, the number of Korean students in China has plunged by 64 percent to 16,968 in 2022 from 47,146 in 2020.

The decline is attributed to China’s repressive stance, evident in a series of political events, including the country’s retaliation against the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Air Defense in Korea in 2016 and the enforcement of the new national security law for Hong Kong in 2020.

As another factor for the decline, Koreans and Chinese have a growing sense of hostility amid the tug between the U.S. and China.

“Geopolitical tensions with China played a major role in the decline,” said Song Ja-won, a director of Uway Global Co. “A rise in the number of Korean companies fleeing China was another factor.”

On the other hand, the number of Korean students in Japan saw a smaller fall as the leaders of Korea and Japan have tried to improve their bilateral relations in recent months. The number fell to 14,247 last year from 18,338 in 2020, partly driven by a relatively robust labor market in Japan.

Social issues in the U.S., such as gun violence and the opioid epidemic, have resulted in a decline in Koreans studying there. The number fell 24.4 percent to 39,491 in 2022 from 52,250 in 2020.

“In the past, China was second only to the U.S. in terms of Korean students looking to study abroad, but today’s students prefer English-speaking countries such as Canada and Australia to China in the face of the ongoing U.S.-China tensions,” said an unnamed official from the Korea Overseas Study Association. “More parents now want short-term education programs for their children as they have foreign backgrounds.”

More Korean students turned to Europe with more educational opportunities for international students.

Korean students in Germany increased from 3.6 percent in 2020 to 5.2 percent last year. Dutch colleges have recently announced that they would no longer accept international students with shutdowns in branches of the Netherlands Education Support Offices (NESO) abroad due to a severe housing shortage that has led to a significant drop in dormitory capacity.

Meanwhile, some experts expressed their hopes that the number of Korean students going abroad will rebound slightly this year as foreign colleges strive to attract international students.

“For the U.S. and the U.K., Korea is a major country with a very high number of international students after China and India,” Song said.