Professors and principals actively appear on short videos to recruit new students

Masan University President Lee Hak-jin dances the \'Pokemon Dance\' with students. Masan University\'s official Instagram account \'MaDaeon\' Galmuri

On the Instagram account of Masan University, a private university in South Gyeongsang Province, there is a short-form content taken by the head of the admissions department, saying, "Freshmen, please be my students.” The video received 9.57 million views, with the comments saying, "I'm a future student. Professor, please accept me, too," and "Do you accept students from other universities as your students?"

In addition, more than 12,000 comments were posted on a reel, where a professor of occupational therapy, who calls himself Dr. Ahn, parodied the song "Do you know Dr. Hong?" and danced, "Do you know the occupational therapy department, too?" There is also a reel of the president of a college dancing Pokémon with students.

Recently, a reel titled "Principal's Flirting" received 2.42 million views on Gwangyang city government’s official Instagram account. Flirting means to seduce someone, and in the short video, former principal Lee Sang-in of Jinsang Elementary School promotes the school, saying, "If you transfer to our school, I'll give you lots of delicious things!" Located in Jinsang-myeon, Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, the elementary school has a total of 40 students and only three new students this year.

As the school-age population decreases, schools that are struggling to recruit new students are promoting their schools in various ways. It is not uncommon to see school officials, such as professors and principals, reveal their faces on social networking services (SNS) and promote their schools using "memes," which are popular online images or expressions. This is to appeal to students in a non-authoritative way and to increase the favorability of the school on social media, which is the main communication channel for younger people these days.

From elementary school to university, the decrease in the number of students due to the low birth rate is getting fast. This soon leads to school management difficulties and a crisis of existence. Schools' promotion with reels stems from this sense of crisis. This year, 369,441 students entered elementary schools, marking the first time in history to plunge to the 300,000 mark. The number of elementary school students nationwide, including first to sixth graders, fell 38 percent in 20 years from 4.175 million in 2003 to 2.263 million in 2023. As the number of students has decreased, the number of schools deciding to merge with other schools has also increased. Over the past three years, 58 elementary schools across the country have been merged.

Universities, in particular, those in non-metropolitan areas, are also disappearing faster. Of the 163 departments whose number of applicants did not meet the quota in the 2024 regular school year, 162 were non-metropolitan universities. As the number of students decreased, universities whose tuition revenue decreased also faced financial difficulties.

According to Korea Advancing Schools Foundation, the number of "universities under management crisis" increased from 32 in 2022 to 38 last year, based on a financial status diagnosis of 282 private universities nationwide. In February, Kangwon Tourism College decided to close its doors due to accumulating deficits and difficulty recruiting new students.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.