Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Shrinking university classes

From the Chosun:

Seventeen national universities countrywide and seven major private universities
in Seoul have decided to cut their undergraduate intake by 12,000 over the next
two years. That will mean stiffer competition for already stressed-out high
school graduates.

I don't know if this is good news or bad news for me. If my university decreases its' undergraduate intake, my job is threatened. My uni, however, is seldom mentioned in the same sentence as Yonsei, Korea or Ehwa so if fewer students can get in to the top tier universities, my uni might swell from the trickle down.

Elsewhere in the article, I saw this: [reducing enrollment was considered]an effort by the universities to turn themselves into the “world-standard research-centered schools” .

Another suggestion for universities would be to continue to accept whatever number of students, but to fail some. Was it Dongguk that became famous as the first Korean University to fail students?

On a possibly related note, my university has two campusses; Gangneung and Yangyang. I have heard rumors that the Yangyang campus will close sometime in the next few (5?) years.

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