Beyond the “N-Attempt” Society: Reducing Private Education Costs by Easing Bottlenecks in College Admissions
Institute for Future Strategy Issue Brief Vol. 44
“Beyond the “N-Attempt” Society: Reducing Private Education Costs by Easing Bottlenecks in College Admissions”
This issue brief empirically analyses the impact of increasing private education expenditure on fertility rates and discusses policy responses to reduce private education costs in primary and secondary education within the reality that the college admissions structure and the private education market are closely interconnected.
The analysis finds that since 2016, real private education expenditure has shown a sharp upward trend, while the total fertility rate has declined sharply over the same period. In particular, analysis of the relationship between average private education spending by metropolitan and provincial governments and birth-order-specific fertility rates confirms a strong negative correlation between private education expenditure and second- and third-or-higher-order fertility rates. This indicates that the burden of high private education costs acts as a constraining factor that may reduce the likelihood of having two or more children.
In addition, this issue brief suggests that changes in the characteristics of parent households over the past 15 years—such as higher levels of educational attainment and income, an increase in dual-income households, and a rise in one-child households—may have acted as major factors contributing to the increase in private education expenditure. If these changes continue, it can be expected that private education spending will remain at a high level or continue to increase in the absence of appropriate policy responses.
Accordingly, it emphasises that alleviating the college admissions bottleneck phenomenon, represented by the increase in repeat applicants (N-susang), is a key task in reducing private education costs related to university admissions, and presents the need for comprehensive and systematic policy responses. These include the gradual relaxation of regulations on the proportion of regular admissions, the expansion of enrolment quotas at science- and engineering-focused universities such as the science and technology institutes and POSTECH, and the rational strengthening of restrictions on late-night private tutoring hours.
