Declining enrolments and entrenched hierarchies will hamper the new South Korean government’s plans to transform its regional institutions into world-class universities that can compete with Seoul, academics have warned.
The “Ten Seoul National Universities” initiative was a flagship policy of Lee Jae-myung during his campaign to replace impeached president Yoon Suk Yeol, who was removed from office after a tumultuous period?in which he?declared martial law.
Since winning the election in June,?Lee has pushed on with the plan, recently nominating one of its architects, Lee Jin-sook, former president of Chungnam National University, as his minister of education.
Based on a 2021 proposal by Kyung Hee University professor Kim Jong-young, the initiative aims to pump resources into nine regional universities to elevate them to the level of Seoul National University, as a key part of a wider regional development strategy.
Each designated university would receive??300 billion (?170 million) annually, with the goal of elevating three into the global top 100 within a decade.
But scholars have questioned both the realism and the relevance of the “10 SNU” plan, warning that it could struggle to overcome deep-rooted structural and demographic obstacles.
Higher education experts say the country’s entrenched academic hierarchy, coupled with a?shrinking student population, makes such an overhaul unlikely to succeed without broader system change.
“The government’s ambition,” said Theodore Jun?Yoo, professor of history at Yonsei University, “is, in reality, neither revolutionary nor genuinely feasible within the current fabric of Korean society”.
While past reforms have aimed to?boost research?or expand access, few have attempted to replicate the prestige and resources of South Korea’s top national university outside the capital.
But the?Seoul-centric concentration of top institutions, employers and infrastructure continues to draw the country’s best students to the capital – often permanently.
Professor Jun Hyun Hong of Chung Ang University?told?Times Higher Education?that?“actually securing a budget equivalent to Seoul National University’s will likely be very challenging,” citing Korea’s lower-than-OECD-average public spending on higher education and ongoing tuition freezes.
Moreover, Hong said investment alone would not resolve the deeper problem of competitive university admissions.
“Simply increasing facilities and budgets will not fundamentally improve admission bottlenecks and university rankings without reforming the admission structure itself.”
He added that any serious attempt to revitalise regional universities must be tied to broader economic transformation.
“There must be high-quality job opportunities and industry-academia collaboration linking education and research with local industries,” he said. Local governments, he added, must also provide amenities attractive to skilled professionals.
Chang H. Kim, assistant professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, agreed that?revitalising regional cities which were “slowly collapsing in terms of population, industry, and infrastructure” needed to come first or else investment in universities could be wasted.?
“If these ecosystems are successfully revitalised, local universities will grow alongside them. This organic growth can then stimulate university-industry collaboration and R&D. Injecting massive budgets and authority into local universities in the absence of a robust regional ecosystem may end up being little more than a short-term fix,” he said.
Robert J.?Fouser, former associate professor of Korean language education at SNU, was more blunt in his assessment.
“I see no chance of that,” he said of the plan’s potential to shift the focus away from the capital. “Moving existing institutions from Seoul would have an impact, but that’s not being discussed and is extremely difficult to do.”
He warned that?declining enrolments?will intensify the challenges facing regional campuses.
“Some institutions may no longer be able to fill seats, let alone attract talented staff and students,” he said. “Declining enrolment requires a downsizing or retrenchment strategy, but that is not being discussed beyond media reports of weak private universities facing financial difficulties.”
Instead,?Fouser?advocated for a model focused on university autonomy and differentiation.
“This is perhaps the only way forward – to deal with the shrinking pool of university applicants and improve the quality of education and research.”
He criticised the government’s “top-down” approach, arguing that meaningful reform requires institutions to set their own priorities.
“The government’s goals come from the nexus of politicians, bureaucrats, and the media, not from the universities themselves. The top-down structure of the reforms is not conducive to developing autonomy and competitiveness.”
Despite scepticism, some academics welcomed the spotlight on regional institutions. Yoo Jun, vice-president at Hanyang University, described the plan as “meaningful” and long overdue, although he acknowledged it “will take more than 10 years to bear fruit”.
Still, with few concrete funding mechanisms or structural changes outlined so far, he remained cautious.?“A groundbreaking expansion of government budgetary support for higher education is needed, but no clear measures have been announced yet.”
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