The number of foreign degree students in natural sciences and engineering at general graduate schools of private universities outside the capital area rose 23.6% over two years. In regional university labs that faced a struggle for survival amid declining numbers of domestic master's and doctoral students, foreign students have established themselves as core personnel carrying out research projects and experiments. However, only 13.8% of foreign graduates go on to secure domestic employment, leaving the task of connecting graduate school enrollment to the expansion of the science and technology workforce unresolved.
According to an analysis of disclosure data from the University Information Disclosure system by Seoul Economic Daily on the 27th, the number of foreign degree students in natural sciences and engineering at general graduate schools of private universities outside the capital area increased from 1,607 in 2023 to 1,987 in 2025. At some graduate schools, the reliance has grown to the point where foreign students account for 70-80% of enrolled students in natural sciences and engineering.
A representative example is the electrical engineering department at Dongshin University's graduate school in Naju, South Jeolla Province. As students from China, Central Asia, and Vietnam have increased there, artificial intelligence (AI) interpretation services have become an essential tool for classes and research activities. The school has even assigned separate interpretation staff to help students who are not fluent in Korean communicate.
Foreign students are supporting the operation of research labs by taking on research projects and experiments. A professor at the university said, "In the past, even when we won research projects, there were almost no master's or doctoral students to actually carry out the work." He added, "Currently there are about 10 foreign students in the lab, more than double the number five years ago, allowing us to operate the lab stably."
At the electrical engineering department of a private university graduate school in Daegu, foreign students are also filling personnel gaps in research projects. In addition to research projects and experiments, they are deployed to survey overseas papers and empirical cases. A professor in the department explained, "In a situation where it is difficult to find domestic graduate students, foreign students are filling the personnel gap for carrying out research projects." He added, "Because they extensively find papers and empirical cases from their home countries, they also help in grasping overseas research trends."
Until just a few years ago, STEM graduate schools at regional private universities faced a survival crisis. The Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), in a policy brief published in 2023, forecast that if the decline in the school-age population continued, the number of master's and doctoral students in STEM general graduate schools could fall to less than half of the level at that time by around 2050. It also proposed that graduate school sizes should be optimized in preparation for the possibility that the number of universities able to stably operate STEM graduate schools would significantly decrease.
However, in a follow-up brief released this March, STEPI projected that the timing of the decline would be delayed beyond earlier forecasts, noting that the number of STEM graduate students at domestic general graduate schools exceeded 100,000 for the first time in 2025. The forecast holds that master's students will turn to a downward trend after 2027 and doctoral students after 2030, falling to about 60% of the current level by 2050. National research and development (R&D) investment, expanded support for graduate students, and an increase in foreign international students were analyzed as factors influencing the recent rise in graduate student numbers. (Science and Technology Policy Institute)
The impact of regional private universities joining the recruitment race has also been significant, as they participate in international student support programs run by the government and local governments and establish new degree programs in fields of high interest to foreign students, such as AI, semiconductors, and future automobiles. In 2023, the government announced the "Study Korea 300K Project," setting a goal of attracting 300,000 foreign international students by 2027. Through the Regional Innovation System & Education (RISE), it is also promoting projects in which regional universities and local governments jointly attract foreign international students and support their employment and settlement. (Ministry of Education)
Dongshin University's RISE project team held a study-abroad fair in Vietnam last year. North Gyeongsang Province has established "Gyeongbuk Hakdang," which teach Korean and Gyeongbuk studies in countries such as Vietnam and Uzbekistan, linking local students to studying at universities in the province and to employment and settlement.
For regional private universities, foreign international students are a realistic means of survival that secures tuition revenue and maintains graduate school enrollment rates. However, the government's international student recruitment policy does not stop at filling the empty seats of regional universities. There is also a strong aim to use foreign STEM talent trained at domestic universities as human resources to supplement personnel shortages in university research labs and advanced industries. As securing domestic master's and doctoral students becomes difficult due to the declining school-age population, foreign international students are emerging as an alternative to maintaining the domestic science and technology research base.
The problem is that international student recruitment has not led to an expansion of the domestic science and technology workforce. It will take several more years to confirm the employment and settlement outcomes of the foreign international students who surged in 2025, and the domestic settlement record of existing graduates has not been high either.
According to the "2024 Employment Statistics Survey of Higher Education Institution Graduates" released by the Ministry of Education last year, of the 36,271 foreign international students who graduated from domestic higher education institutions, 4,993 were employed domestically, accounting for 13.8% of all graduates. The official employment rate, calculated based on 14,966 people eligible for employment, was 33.4%. A total of 15,576 people, or 42.9% of graduates, were counted as being in a "residency terminated" status, without a valid visa for staying in Korea as of the survey reference date. (Ministry of Education)
Insufficient job connections between universities and local companies, along with Korean language skills, employment visas, and a lack of quality jobs in the region, are cited as factors hindering settlement. Lee Hye-sun, a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, pointed out, "The policy to expand foreign international students is still closer to quantitative recruitment than to settlement as domestic science and technology personnel." She added, "To connect this to national science and technology capabilities beyond the effect of maintaining graduate school sizes, we must also prepare a labor market and employment pathways where they can work after graduation."
