College Tutors Can Earn 60,000-100,000 Won Per Hour

College students studying abroad are returning to Korea during their summer vacations in order to tutor prospective students willing to study abroad.

Considering the extraordinary number of high school graduates with high hopes of going off to college in a foreign country, particularly in the United States, part-time tutors are being offered a handsome 60,000-100,000 won per hour, making those jobs very appealing.

Great Part-Time Job—

Jung (21), who is currently studying abroad at the University of ‘P’ in the United States, periodically returned to Korea, starting with his 2002 summer vacation, in order to tutor prospective high school students who wish to go to college in the U.S. His clients range from students who attend domestic public high schools to high school students studying in the U.S. who returned to Korea during their summer vacations. The tutoring mostly has to do with college entrance exams such as the SATs and college admission essays.

Anyone who is an Ivy League graduate or is currently an Ivy League student can make approximately 60,000 won per hour, which is said to be the current fixed rate.

Last summer vacation alone, Jung tutored students for one month and made 15 million won.

Kim (22), an Ivy League student, teamed up with three of his fellow colleagues and rented a 60-pyong officetel in Gangnam in order to tutor 10 students everyday for 14 hours. He made approximately 100 million won in two months.

Noh (24) is tutoring three prospective students willing to study abroad at Yuksam Dong, Gangnam. He says, “I wish to earn as much as possible during my summer vacation to pay part of my approximately 50 million won annual tuition and miscellaneous expenses in order to lighten the financial burden bestowed upon my parents.”

Tutoring Market Flourishing—

The reason why a steady flow of students studying abroad are coming home for their summer vacations is that the demand is in Korea. Jung says, “I never had to worry whether or not I’ll have students available to tutor because a number of prospective SAT takers are easily found through well-connected internet cafes, so the tutoring job was rather easy to start.”

Unlike the decreasing private education market, due to a steady decrease in Hakwon (preparatory academy) expenditures and EBS college entrance exam televised lectures, the craze to study abroad is ever increasing.

Currently an employee of a preparatory agency for prospective students who wish to study abroad, Kim says, “Because of the advanced English education offered in Korea, the U.S. college entrance exams aren’t necessarily perceived as hard any more. Many preparatory academies have established prep classes for students who wish to study abroad.” Kim also said, “Generally, in public high schools, a systemized process that helps students to prepare themselves to study abroad is currently not in place, so students who wish to study abroad are heading towards academies and institutions that specialize in prepping such students.”

However, such tutoring, according to officials at the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, and especially “officetel tutoring,” is illegal. Even though college students are not required to declare their tutoring incomes, outrageously high tutoring rates are illegal and the Ministry of Education can either fine or shut down such operations. Some also point out the fact that ex-post-facto management of students studying abroad should be required.

According to the Ministry of Education, the number of college students studying abroad has steadily increased. There were 120,000 such students in 1999, 149,933 in 2001, and 159,903 in 2003.

Yonsei University professor Han Joon-sang states that “nowadays, studying abroad has become such a generalized part of our society that the government should find out a concrete method about how to manage students who are studying abroad while domestic universities must undergo reforms in order to successfully manage our nation’s educational future.”

Yi-Young Cho Soo-Jung Shin lycho@donga.com crystal@donga.com