When Everyone Goes to College: a Lesson From South Korea

South Korea leads the world in college attendance rate, which is approaching 100%. This sounds great at first, until you consider that the majority of the population (in any country) lacks the cognitive ability to pursue a rigorous college education (or at least what used to be defined as a rigorous college education).

Chronicle of Higher Education: ... Seongho Lee, a professor of education at Chung-Ang University, criticizes what he calls "college education inflation." Not all students are suited for college, he says, and across institutions, their experience can be inconsistent. "It’s not higher education anymore," he says. "It’s just an extension of high school." And subpar institutions leave graduates ill prepared for the job market.

A 2013 study by McKinsey Global Institute, the economic-research arm of the international consulting firm, found that lifetime earnings for graduates of Korean private colleges were less than for workers with just a high-school diploma. In recent years, the unemployment rate for new graduates has topped 30 percent.

"The oversupply in college education is a very serious social problem," says Mr. Lee, even though Korea, with one of the world’s lowest fertility rates, has a declining college-age population. The country, he worries, is at risk of creating an "army of the unemployed." ...

See also Brutal, Just Brutal.