Korean Student Exodus
South Korean High School Freshmen Leaving Reaches Seven-Year High Amid Policy Changes
Anonymous
More than 10,000 first-year students dropped out of South Korean general high schools before finishing their freshman year, according to an analysis by Jongno Academy of official school data. The total reached 10,450 students — the highest figure in seven years — and nearly doubled from 5,015 in 2020, Jongno Academy found.
Freshmen now account for 56% of all high school dropouts in South Korea. Analysts say two forces are driving the surge: a new five-tier grading system introduced in 2025, and a growing belief among students that quitting school is the fastest route to a top university.
New Grading System Pushes Students to Quit and Reset
South Korea replaced its old nine-tier school grading system with a five-tier one in 2025. Under the old system, only the top 4% of students earned the highest grade. Under the new system, the top 10% do. The government said this would ease pressure. It did not.
Im Seong-ho, CEO of Jongno Academy, says the change backfired. "Students are now making a strategic choice," he said. "They see the high school record as a burden rather than an asset if they don't hit the top mark immediately." Students who miss the top 10% in their first semester believe their chances at elite universities — especially medical schools — are already gone. So they leave, take the General Educational Development (GED) exam, and start over with a clean record, according to MK News.
GED Pathway to Medical School Becomes a Mass Strategy
The number of GED students who applied for the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) — South Korea's main university entrance exam — hit 22,355 in 2026. That is an 11.2% jump from the year before and the highest number since 1995, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.
The trigger was the government's 2024 decision to add 2,000 medical school seats nationwide. That move set off what analysts call a "medical school craze." A high CSAT score plus a GED is now seen as a "cleaner" path to medical admission than a high school transcript with even one bad semester, according to Dong-A Ilbo.
Teachers Overwhelmed, Classrooms Hollowing Out
South Korea also launched a new High School Credit System in 2025, letting students pick electives like university courses. In practice, it has strained teachers badly. A June 2026 survey by the Korean Teachers and Education Workers' Union found that 87% of Seoul high school teachers want the system scrapped. They cited "evaluation difficulties" and "collapsed classroom communities," according to MK News.
A separate survey found that 40% of second-year students "want to give up on math," citing the subject's difficulty. Freshman dropouts grew 6.1% year-on-year — far faster than the 0.9% rise in total high school dropouts. Regionally, Gwangju saw the sharpest spike, with dropouts rising 22.1%, followed by Chungnam at 13.3% and Gyeonggi at 12.5%, according to The Asia Business Daily.
Hagwons Cash In as Government Defends Its Reforms
Private cram schools, known as hagwons, have moved quickly to profit from the trend. Many now offer "GED plus CSAT package courses" aimed directly at dropout students, according to Dong-A Ilbo. This adds to the already heavy private education costs many Korean families carry.
The Ministry of Education, led by Minister Lee Ju-ho, argues the five-tier system was designed to "recognize and foster future-oriented talents" and that current dropout trends are a temporary "calibration" period before the full 2028 university entrance reform kicks in, according to The Korea Herald. Critics are less patient. The dropout crisis has become a central issue in South Korea's June 2026 local elections, with opposition parties calling it a sign of policy failure.
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