American college students are being tempted by the rising recognition of Korean popular culture and an increase in English-taught packages to check within the South Asian nation, a brand new report from Korea College and Underwood Worldwide Faculty (UIC) has discovered.
Citing information from the Institute of Worldwide Training within the US and South Korea’s Ministry of Justice, the report’s authors famous that worldwide college students from the US have grown “eight-fold” for the reason that early 2000s, surging dramatically from 834 in 2002/03 to five,909 in 2022/23.
In addition to seeing vital development in worldwide college students over the previous decade, South Korea’s worldwide schooling sector noticed a swift rebound following the pandemic, the report mentioned.
“These traits solidify Korea’s standing as an rising and main participant within the worldwide change of US college students,” it added.
The authors – Kyuseok Kim, IES Overseas Seoul’s heart director, and Edward Choi, an assistant professor at UIC – recommended a lot of components behind this phenomenon, together with a worldwide craze for Korean pop (Okay-pop) music and acclaimed tv sequence corresponding to Netflix’s Squid Recreation, which they mentioned are “including to Korea’s reputational cache”.
“College students drawn to the Korean tradition are more and more a part of a worldwide cultural migration. The pull of cultural immersion has turn into vital – over the utilitarian wants of profession or educational mobility,” they mentioned.
“This shift, from utilitarian to cultural, is a step in a optimistic route, reinforcing long-standing efforts by each nations to forge ties based mostly on mutual understanding and cultural change.”
However additionally they famous that South Korea’s internationalisation technique for increased schooling – which kicked off within the Nineties and now goals for the nation to welcome a world scholar inhabitants of 300,000 by 2027 – seems to be “lastly paying off”.
The nation has labored to draw worldwide college students by way of academic exchanges with different nations, forging partnerships with different establishments abroad and rising the variety of English-taught packages at Korean increased schooling establishments.
This shift, from utilitarian to cultural, is a step in a optimistic route, reinforcing long-standing efforts by each nations to forge ties based mostly on mutual understanding and cultural change
Kyuseok Kim, IEES Overseas Seol and Edward Choi, UIC
The authors additionally picked up on “shifting views” amongst US college students in direction of “various sorts of academic engagements in Korea”, which they credited to a rising urge for food for short-term examine overseas alternatives.
“The strategic implications of those traits for worldwide schooling suppliers are profound,” the report mentioned. “With Korea’s academic attraction strengthening, there’s a clear indication that future program choices ought to more and more cater to the demand for shorter, extra culturally built-in abroad studying experiences.”