Last year, the number of high school seniors who entered college dropped below 300,000 for the first time in the new millennium. The number of school-age children has decreased significantly and the number of students who opted to give it another try after failing to enter a university of their choice jumped in the Seoul Gangnam region, which may have contributed to the latest drop.

Jongro Haneul Education analyzed the status of high school graduates released on the School Info website last month, and announced on June 14 that according to their results, the percentage of students from 1,815 general high schools advancing to college increased slightly from last year (78.9%) to 79.2% in 2021, but the number of students who entered college dropped by 40,459 to 285,487. This is the first time in the 2000s that the number of high school seniors who entered college fell below 300,000.

The drop in the number of school-age children led to the drop in college admissions. Last year, the number of high school seniors dropped 12.7% from the previous year. According to the Status of Unfilled College Admissions Nationwide in 2021, released by the Ministry of Education last month, the number of students who entered college was 40,586 fewer than the number of admissions available.

Oh Jong-wun, director of assessment at Jongro Academy said, “Although the percentage of students advancing to college increased slightly, it was not enough to make up for the decreasing number of school-age children, and this resulted in colleges failing to recruit all their students.”