Foreign Student Admissions in South Korea Jump 75% in Six Years, Half of Doctoral Graduates Stay Near Their Universities

South Korean universities admitted 117,333 new foreign students in 2025, up 75% from 66,915 in 2019. Over the same period, total university admissions, including Korean nationals, fell 1%.

The Justice Ministry’s Korea Immigration Service and Office of Immigration and Foreign Policy analyzed the full path of foreign students from admission and study to graduation, employment and settlement. The analysis covered 530,557 students admitted between 2019 and 2025, including exchange students, and 152,107 graduates during the same period, excluding exchange students.

North Chungcheong recorded the sharpest increase in new foreign-student admissions at 414.7%, followed by North Gyeongsang at 305.2%, South Jeolla at 254.0% and Gyeonggi at 140.3%. Admissions fell 24.1% in Ulsan and 54.4% in Jeju.

Among doctoral graduates who did not leave South Korea, more than half of those employed in the country stayed in the region where their university was located.