1 in 4 college freshmen next year to have ‘no major’

Following the 2025 college entrance exam, more than one in four freshmen will enter college through the ‘non-major selection’ (autonomous major selection system), which means entering without a major. Students can freely explore their career paths in their first year and then select a major when they move up to their second year. This is expected to be a major variable in this year's entrance exam.

According to the Ministry of Education and each university on Tuesday, it was confirmed that 154 four-year public and private universities across the country recently conveyed to the Korea Council for University Education a policy to select non-majors for more than 25% of their seats on average.

The Ministry of Education announced earlier this year that it would provide financial aid incentives only to universities with a non-major selection rate of 25% or more, but changed it to a recommendation after universities protested. However, the non-major selection rate must exceed 25% to receive maximum support through additional points. For this reason, it appears that universities wanting to avoid being disadvantaged in the University Innovation Support Project and the National University Development Project have expanded the selection of non-majors.

According to the Ministry of Education, major universities in Seoul with relatively ample funds rarely had a non-major selection rate exceeding 25%, but most middle- and lower-ranking universities that lacked government support had more than 25%.


Ye-Na Choi yena@donga.com