Two decades ago, South Korea was a major “sender” of international students, packing off many of its brightest minds to American and European colleges and universities. Today, it is itself a hugely popular study destination, with students drawn by the explosion of interest in Korean pop culture – the so-called K-Wave – and its continued expansion of high-quality English-taught courses.
By any measure, the expansion of the international student population has been impressive. From a modest 17,000 in 2004, the number soared to 226,000 last year: 7.5 per cent of South Korea’s total of 3 million higher education students.
Scrutiny of international students’ visa categories reveals their diverse academic paths and entry strategies. Recruitment for non-credit-bearing courses, primarily in Korean language studies, constitutes the largest share, at 33 per cent, closely followed by undergraduate bachelor’s programmes at 32 per cent. Enrolment in advanced degrees is smaller, but not insignificant, with 14 per cent in master’s programmes and 10 per cent in doctoral studies.
However, this boom in foreign students is putting increasing strain on the systems tasked with managing their residency. More students means a higher risk of lapses into illegal immigration status – either unintentionally or deliberately. It is indeed hard to ignore the growing number of students in illegal residency status – up from 8,200 in 2017 to 36,000 in 2023.
The breakdown of illegal residency by visa type shows pronounced disparities. While only 6 per cent of students who enter on D-2 visas, designated for degree-seeking programmes, go on to illegal residence status, 34 per cent of those on D-4 visas, for certificate/non-degree programmes such as language courses, do so. This may be due to less stringent institutional oversight, the inherently temporary and informal nature of their programmes, or differing motivations for obtaining visas.
Particularly notable is the dramatic rise in illegal status among Vietnamese students, with a staggering 83 per cent of illegally residing students hailing from this country. Many of them are enrolled in Korean language programmes.
As in other countries, there is growing concern in South Korea that universities may have become conduits for illegal stays, as international students leave their studies to pursue employment opportunities rather than demonstrate full commitment to academic efforts. With overall enrolment dwindling owing to a domestic demographic shift, regional universities desperate for survival are aggressively recruiting students from overseas, yet sometimes they fail to manage and support them in the right way.
The severity of the issue is exposed by the recent arrest of a professor and various accomplices on charges of falsifying the attendance records of international students engaged in illegal employment. Moreover, a few worrisome cases have been reported of foreign nationals engaging in criminal activities such as gambling and drug trafficking after entering the country on student visas.
To mitigate the rising illegal residency rate, international offices at South Korean universities have begun monitoring students’ behaviour and whereabouts. Moreover, in pursuit of their duty to ensure that students who drop out then leave the country, some regional universities even deploy private security teams to monitor and even (illegally) restrict the movements of students who have abandoned their studies. One small regional university has imposed a strict curfew and a daily roll call of all international students in its hall of residence.
Meanwhile, the government has started to conduct annual surveys and accreditation reviews based on illegal stay rates, restricting visas for universities deemed problematic.
South Korea’s educational landscape and economy have undoubtedly been immensely enriched by the growing influx of passionate international students. But it is imperative to strengthen regulatory frameworks and enhance institutional capacities to support and effectively manage this diverse student body.
By addressing these challenges in the right way, South Korea can ensure that its educational institutions continue to offer both quality and visa compliance, maintaining their status as attractive global destinations for prospective students and fulfilling the country’s goal of hosting 300,000 international students by 2027.
Kyuseok Kim (KS) is a former Fulbright Scholar and PhD candidate at Korea University, specialising in higher education administration. He has more than 14 years of experience in international higher education, having held positions at both a research university and a US branch campus in South Korea.
