Korean Educational Development Institute(KEDI)

The purpose of this study is to examine whether the changes of the ‘college admission policy’ have affected students’ use of ‘shadow education’. Additionally, the study seeks to examine the relationship between ‘education fever’ in Korea and the policy of college admission system. Data for this study were drawn from a 2004 cohort (1st-9th waves) of the Korean Education and Employment Panel (KEEP). The subjects for this study were middle-school seniors (9th graders) in 2004, high-school seniors (12th graders) in 2007 when the additional panel data of ‘special-purpose high school students’ are added, and first-year college students in 2008 when the data about the college-admissions system that the students chose are added. A weighted ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to estimate both the collective and the relative effects of each of the variable sets, family background, student characteristics, school characteristics and quality, education fever, and type of college-admission system on students’ uses of shadow education in South Korea. The findings show that the variable reflecting diverse college admissions policies in itself scarcely influences shadow education expenditures. Instead, some significant positive impacts of ‘education fever’ variables like ‘self-study’, ‘levels of education desired’, and especially, ‘prestige-oriented college choice’ on shadow education were found. The results imply that, without considering ‘education fever’, any policy efforts, such as changes of the national college admission system, might not be successful in reducing Korean students’ use of shadow education.