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Gov't penalizes universities that admitted foreign students who overstayed their visas
By Lee Hyo-jin
The increasing number of international students in Korea who have been overstaying their student visas has been emerging as a major headache for provincial universities, many of which have been slapped with one-year bans on recruiting new students from overseas.
Government data shows thousands of undocumented immigrants around the nation who came here initially as students, and then stayed in the country even after their academic or language programs ended and their student visas expired.
The universities that originally invited these students who overstayed their visas are now facing the consequences, as the sanction measure bans them from admitting any students of foreign nationality for a year. This hits them hard financially as they had been relying heavily on tuition payments from international students, especially due to the growing shortage of domestic students caused by the nation's falling birthrate.
Within the broader context of shrinking government support, many universities' financial difficulties have been further compounded by the lack of domestic students and their tuition payments, which have been frozen for the last decade.
Facing this situation, many schools started turning to a new strategy: attracting international students.
The number of foreign students nationwide, which stood at around 33,000 in 2006, surged to nearly 160,000 by 2021, backed by support from the Ministry of Education which set the ambitious goal of raising the figure to 200,000 by 2023.
'Missing' students on the rise
But since the onset of the pandemic, an increasing number of international students have not been leaving the country after their visas expire, according to data from the Ministry of Justice.
From 2019 to 2021, the number of international students studying for degree programs rose by 20 percent, while the number of students overstaying their visas jumped by more than 120 percent during the same period.
In 2019, 2,833 foreign nationals who arrived in Korea on D-2 student visas were found to have overstayed them, and the figure rose to 4,692 in 2020 and 6,294 in 2021.
Since 2012, based on an annual assessment conducted by the education and justice ministries, the schools with the highest numbers of students staying illegally in the country are banned from recruiting new international students for one year.
This year, 18 schools ― including Suwon, Yongin and Jeonju universities ― have been banned from admitting students of foreign nationality for degree programs, and 19 universities ― including Hanshin, Chosun and Daejin Universities ― will not be able to accept first-year students for Korean language programs.
These universities view the measure as an “excessively harsh penalty,” considering that it has been much harder for them to keep track of their students for the last two years, as most classes were conducted online due to the pandemic.
“We had never experienced such issues before the COVID-19 pandemic. But as classes were conducted online, and not all of them are conducted real time, it has been very difficult for us to take care of the students,” an official, in charge of the Korean language center at a university in Gyeonggi Province, said on condition of anonymity.
He presumed that most of the students who haven't yet left the country are working at farms and factories in the region.
“We do feel a sense of responsibility that some of our students have become undocumented, but realistically speaking, there aren't any measures to prevent the students who are aged 20 and above from disappearing,” he said.
He expressed worries that the one-year ban will have a significant impact on the university, saying that the language center has already had to lay off some of its instructors.
An official at a university in North Jeolla Province, who also requested anonymity, pointed out the lack of government support for monitoring the students.
“Previously, we made several reports to the police when we found out that some of our students were overstaying their visas. But it didn't help much,” he said.
“We also consulted with the immigration authorities, but due to their lack of personnel and complicated administrative procedures, they failed to come up with feasible support measures.”
The official argued that schools should not be held solely responsible for their students who have overstayed their visas, as the government has eased its stance towards undocumented immigrants during the pandemic by scaling down its inspections and crackdowns.
The justice ministry, for its part, said it took into consideration the difficulties of the universities amid the pandemic.
“We drastically eased the assessment criteria this year, as we were aware that it has been difficult for universities to monitor their students. We also took into consideration that we have loosened monitoring on undocumented foreigners during the pandemic,” an official at the Korea Immigration Service told The Korea Times.
“We will discuss it with the education authorities and see if we can make more improvements in the assessment system.”
Song Gi-chang, a professor of education at Sookmyung Women's University, said the government should engage in solving the issue more actively.
“Attracting students from overseas was not just an option but a must, especially for provincial universities that are on the brink of collapse due to the declining population and tuition freeze,” he said.
“But due to the lack of resources, schools lack the ability and authority to monitor these foreign students outside the classroom. The education ministry, the universities and immigration authorities should thoroughly review the issue and come up with comprehensive measures in the long term, rather than one-off measures restricting schools from accepting new students.”