12,897 University Freshmen Unregistered in 2001

It was reported that there was a total of 12897 unregistered freshmen in four-year colleges last year. The rate of unregistered students was higher in the local universities, such as Chunnam, Chunbook, Cheju, and Kyungbook, than in the universities in the metropolitan area. This was interpreted as the failure of the local university support policy. It is also anticipated that the local universities will have financial difficulties due to the shortage in the tuition earnings.

According to the Korea College Education Council’s report on the `Present state of the number of registered and unregistered students in 2001`, 360,000 students registered out of the number of 378,306 admitted students. A total number of 12,897 students (3.4 percent) were unregistered. The rate of unregistered students was lower than last year (4.3 percent).

A total number of 5715 out of the full quota of 359,001 did not register (the rate of unregistered students was 1.6 percent). However, a number of 7182 students out of the total number of 19305 students in the special enrollment recruitment (the rate of unregistered students was 37.2 percent) did not register, repeating the chronic problem of students not registering. An official in the Ministry of Education and Human Resources said, ``There are universities in which less than half of the students are registered. Quite a number of local university students transfer to the universities in the metropolitan area. The attrition rate is also high in the local universities.``

Lee Jin-Yeong ecolee@donga.com