At 12 Korean universities, foreign students account for over 20%

Vietnamese students enrolled in Korean universities up sharply, while share of Chinese students on steady decline

Foreign students pose for a photo in front of the Seokdang Museum at Dong-A University’s Bumin Campus in Busan on Thursday. (Yonhap)

At 12 universities in South Korea, international students accounted for more than 20 percent of total enrollment, a rise from zero institutions a decade ago, a report showed Thursday.

According to data compiled by the Korea Migration Research Institute, 12 out of 389 institutions, including four-year universities and two-year vocational colleges, had foreign students exceeding 20 percent of the student population last year.

This marked a sharp increase from 2014, when not a single university reported such levels of foreign student enrollment.

Schools where international students account for 5 to 10 percent of enrollment rose from 1.6 percent to 12.3 percent during the same period, and those in the 10 to 15 percent range expanded from none to 5.4 percent.

As the presence of international students has grown, their nationalities have also become more diverse. The number of different home countries rose from 141 in 2014 to 155 last year.

The report noted that enrollment of Vietnamese students has seen especially significant growth, while Chinese students, who have long made up the largest share of international students in Korea, are on a downward trend.