The Endless Race for Learning in South Korea

South Korea is often praised as an education miracle, a nation that transformed poverty into prosperity through schooling. Its students consistently rank among the world’s best in math, science, and reading. Nearly every child completes secondary school, and university enrollment rates exceed 70 percent, far above the OECD average. Yet beneath this success lies a quiet crisis: an education system so competitive that students' success largely links to their family income, and millions suffer from constant mental and physical exhaustion.

From early childhood, South Korean students are thrust into a system built on relentless comparison. Long after the school day ends, millions attend hagwons, private academies that specialize in exam preparation. In Seoul, the majority of students attend at least one hagwon, and families collectively spend more than 20 trillion won, about 14 billion U.S. dollars, per year on private education. According to government data, households in the top income bracket spend more than seven times as much on tutoring as those in the lowest. Education here is not just a public good; it is a private investment, often measured in exhaustion and debt.

The results are impressive but uneven. In the most recent OECD assessment, South Korea ranked sixth in mathematics and among the top ten in reading. Yet those averages conceal deep socioeconomic divides. Students from wealthier families outperform disadvantaged peers by the equivalent of nearly two full years of schooling. The “meritocracy” that once symbolized fairness has evolved into a treadmill powered by privilege.

For many students, the cost is psychological. The Korean Statistical Information Service consistently lists suicide as the leading cause of death among teenagers. In surveys, more than 40 percent of high-school students cite academic stress as their main source of anxiety. The culture of perfection permeates every level of schooling, from the pressure of middle-school entrance tests to the national college exam, the Suneung, a day so sacred that flights are grounded during listening sections and traffic police escort late students to testing centers.

The government has long recognized the dangers of this intensity. Regulations limit hagwon operating hours to 10 p.m., and new reforms encourage vocational and “free semester” programs that emphasize creativity and self-expression over rote memorization. Yet parental expectations, job-market competition, and university prestige continue to sustain the race. Many hagwons quietly operate past curfew, while online tutoring platforms fill any remaining gaps.

At its core, South Korea’s educational paradox is not about achievement, but about identity. The country’s rapid development made education synonymous with pride and perseverance, a moral duty passed from one generation to the next. But what was once collective ambition has hardened into collective anxiety. Children study not only to succeed but to avoid falling behind. Parents sacrifice savings, time, and sometimes health to secure their child’s academic future.

South Korea’s classrooms remain full, but the silence of exhaustion is growing louder. The next chapter of South Korean education will depend on a cultural shift as profound as its earlier transformation: understanding that knowledge thrives best in a society that remembers why it seeks it.