This file photo shows the entrance of Seoul National University, one of the country’s most prestigious universities. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Parents’ level of education and income level have a significant impact on a child’s college entrance, a study showed Thursday.
The Korea Institute of Public Finance released a report that uses the Graduates Occupational Mobility Survey (GOMS) to measure the Global Opportunity Index (GOI) and Relative Index of Inequality (RII) of high school graduates between 2000 and 2011.
The results showed that the household environment clearly generates inequality in the opportunity to go to college every year.
“Better household environment means higher performance and better opportunity for college entrance preparations,” said Ju Biung-ghi, the report’s co-author and a professor of economics at Seoul National University.
The report also argued that the inequality of opportunity exists between genders, in which men fared better in college entrance preparations than women.
The level of inequality has more or less been on the rise between 2000 and 2011. The average RII index among top universities, in particular, scored 0.7 in the 2010s, indicating a high level of inequality.
The report argued that extremely high inequality of opportunity to enter the so-called ‘top notch’ universities have made it highly likely (70 percent) that potential student candidates from the lowest income tier households will not be admitted.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
