Overseas Scholarship Program Turns 30

Government-funded scholarships for students studying abroad used to be very sought after. This scholarship program was started to encourage young Koreans to learn abroad and use the newly adopted knowledge to fuel growth back home. This year marks the 30th anniversary of the scholarship program, which was introduced in 1977. We took a look at the schools the scholarship winners came from, what they majored in, and what they do when they return to Korea.

Based on our analysis of the information given by National Institute for International Education Development (NIIED), the organization that is in charge of selecting scholarship grantees, in the beginning, most students were either graduates of Seoul National University (SNU) or natural sciences and engineering students. We found that throughout the years, the universities and majors of the scholarship grantees have become more diverse. The destination of the scholarship students has also become more diverse, as many are now choosing countries other than the U.S.

SNU graduates are not the only scholarship students-

SNU graduates rank first in the number of scholarship grantees with 1,177 (67 percent) students from 1977 to 2005, followed by Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (100 grantees), Yonsei Universities (85 grantees), Korea University (68 grantees), Hanyang University (42 grantees), Kyungpook National University (39 grantees), the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (31 grantees), and Pusan National University (21 grantees)

In 1996, the government lowered the percentage of graduates with natural sciences and engineering degrees and enforced a quota to help students from unpopular majors. Since then, the percentage of SNU graduates has dropped dramatically. The percentage of SNU graduates was 66.7 percent between 1977 and 1980, 78.2 percent from 1981 to 1985, 46.1 percent during 1995 to 2000, and 33.8 percent from 2001 to 2005.

In terms of gender, 1,548 males and 213 females received scholarships. From 2001 to 2005, out of 136 scholarship winners, 50 (36.7 percent) were female.

Graduates with diverse majors-

The top ten majors of the scholarship winners were all natural sciences or engineering– 125 (7.1 percent) had mechanical engineering degrees, 106 (6.0 percent) had electronic engineering degrees, 86 (4.9 percent) had chemical engineering degrees, and 78 (4.4 percent) had metal engineering degrees. Education (27 graduates, 1.5 percent, ranked 15th) and economics (21 graduates, 1.2 percent, ranked 20th) were the only two humanities majors that ranked within the top twenty.

Although the government introduced a quota for graduates from unpopular majors, during the thirty years, graduates with humanities degrees numbered only 341 (19.3 percent) and those with fine arts and physical education backgrounds only numbered 24 (1.4 percent). Eight out of 10 had engineering backgrounds.

The department with the most scholarship receivers was the Department of Mechanical Engineering (96 scholarship receivers, 5.5 percent) of SNU. Still the department has seen its number of scholarship winners dwindle to just five (3.7 percent) from 2001 to 2005. The Department of Electronic Engineering of SNU also saw its number of scholarship winners go down from 21 (10.8 percent) graduates from 1977 to 1980 to two (1.5 percent) graduates from 2001 to 2005. Since the turn of the millennium, the number of scholarship winners with natural sciences and engineering backgrounds has been falling.

Graduates from diverse majors, such as Arabic, anthropology, Chinese history, and Indian linguistics, have taken their place.

Diverse Destinations-

So far, the U.S. has ranked first for the destination of the scholarship receivers. 78.1 percent (1,375) of all the scholarship receivers so far have studied in the U.S. England, an English-speaking country, was second with 109 (6.2 percent), followed by Japan with 52 (3.0 percent), Germany with 39 (2.2 percent), Russia with 28 (1.6 percent), France with 25 (1.4 percent), China with 22 (1.2 percent).

With the shift in the majors of the scholarship receivers, came a shift in their destinations as well. U.S.-bound scholarship receivers fell from 384 (93.0 percent) from 1981 to 1985 to 65 (47.8 percent) from 2001 to 2005.

During this time, the number of scholarship receivers to Japan increased from 2.7 percent to 5.1 percent. The number of scholarship receivers to China increased from five (1.6 percent) from 1991 to 1995 to nine (6.6 percent) from 2001 to 2005.

NIIED started designating nations the scholarship receivers would study in for graduates with certain degrees, in attempts to diversify the destinations since 1992.

During the 70s and 80s, when studying abroad on their own money was not an option, scholarship winners were considered geniuses. A close look at the competition of the scholarship last year reveals, however, that quotas for some majors were not filled. The study abroad scholarship is now regarded as government support for unpopular majors.

Hye-Jin Kwon pen@donga.com hjkwon@donga.com