<p>Will Korean students be able to weather the economic downturn. Korean, according to The Economist (1/31/09), is being harder hit then other Asian Countries, and has more debt and less savings.</p>
<p>While 4thQ2008 GDP in China was flat and down by 15% in Hong Kong, Singapore is down by 17% and Korea GDP has contracted by 22%. </p>
<p>China is jumping on the stimulus bandwagon and it has the funds to do it, using money accumulated by years of 7.5% growth and the 20% average individual savings rate. But Korea citizens don't have those kinds of savings, actually average household Debt of 150% of disposable income. </p>
<p>With the largest downturn of GDP in Korea, and the high level of debt, one wonders if a fair number of Korean students will not be returning next year?</p>
<p>Well, for a lot of 2nd and 3rd tier schools, Korean students make up a sizable percentage of their full-pay student population. And if there is a smaller pool of applicants with open checkbooks in Korea, that is yet another pinch on schools that probably have smaller endowments and have to discount their product to fill seats with US born applicants.</p>
<p>I would imagine there also may be a few in schools this year whose parent's stock portfolio imploded and may not be back in the fall, much like many domestic students.</p>
<p>Fisrt of all, the international students are only about 10% of the whole students body, which is about 10 or less students for 9th grader for small or medium size BS. The number of Korean students per grade is about 5-7 every year in those BS.</p>
<p>Second, those korean students family are rich enough to pay the full tuition no even though the economy is not very good these days. There are enough families who can afford $60K tuition considering the currency rate.
More than 200 korean students are appying to those schools evry year to each school. Most of the korean students quality is outstanding. It is not a problem to pick 7 students who can afford the tuition out of a couple of hundred Koean applications.</p>
<p>Lastly, In any countrry, the upper class people are still doing fine despite that economy is in shambles.</p>
<p>I was referring to 2nd and 3rd tier schools where typically the international student population is about 17%. And I know with my D's school about 2/3 of them are Korean. And when you get to the 2nd and 3rd tier schools, these are the children of the LG and Samsung CEOs. They are investment bankers childrens, real estate developers children, etc. who are the folks most in the pinch in the current economy at least from what I've learned about Koreans at my D's school.</p>
<p>Yes, they may be rich, but when you are highly leveraged and the economy tanks, prestige purchases like a foreign education often will be a casualty.</p>
<p>Goliedad,
Are you suggesting that the second and third tiers may turn to domestic full pays to replace any Korean full pays that are lost? Are there sufficient domestic full pays?</p>
<p>I agree with goaliedad, and the 2nd/3rd tier schools rely very strongly on Korea to find full pays, and no, there are not enough US full pays. Second, there are many schools that have 25% international, and even one, Cheshire, which has had close to 50% international in some lean years.</p>
<p>I had to laugh at the poster who said that the wealthy are not effected by the economic downturn. I wish that were so! I personally know people who went from net worths of $10-15mm down to a few hundred thousand in the bank---all within months. It can happen...</p>
<p>Newyorker,
If you are suggesting that the second and third tiers do not have access to sufficient domestic full pays to reach the critical mass of 50-65% full pay matriculants that schools seem to require, then does it follow that full pays will be admitted without being submitted to the usual criteria for admission? Remember that you are talking about some very good schools!</p>
<p>goaliedad is spot on. The state of the Korean economy will definitely be an issue for many schools. This also becomes an issue for domestic financial aid students because, to be honest, at tuition-driven schools the full-pay Koreans are, in effect, subsidizing the less than fullpay domestics.</p>
<p>On the upside, the China market has emerged as a serious new source of international students. We are anticipating that our currently enrolled Korean students will return (as they have assured us); that we will not get as many new Korean applicants as we have had in the past; and (fingers crossed) we will be able to maintain our international population with additional Mainland Chinese.</p>
<p>We went through a similar shift in 1990 when our Japanese applicant pool dried up, but Taiwan emerged as a new source of students.</p>
<p>Where is it I heard the Koreans borrow and the Chinese save? Maybe the Asian foreign student body will shift to rich Chinese kids.
I live near an important US landmark. It used to be the Japanese and Germans (80's to mid 90's) in buses with their cameras filling the parking lots. Then the Koreans and Indians Now it is mostly Chinese filled buses with about a third of them being Indian.
These are the countries with spending money to blow on tourism, and perhaps the money to send their children Full Pay to American BD's.</p>
<p>And when you get to the 2nd and 3rd tier schools, these are the children of the LG and Samsung CEOs</p>
<p>just to let you know... i do know some of these "children of the LG and Samsung CEOs"
they don't attend 2nd tier/3rd tier schools, either they stay in Korea or attend an arguably 1st/2nd tier school. There are a couple international schools in Korea that have more opportunity than most boarding schools in America, with the exception of the top schools (hence that's where they will end up if not remaining here.)</p>
<p>Sorry, I just had to point this out because even the sons and daughters of rich marketing geniuses (most of these companies are two generations old, at best), even if lacking in the academic qualities of a top student, will be sent to a place where their matriculation chances are highest. </p>
<p>But that was irrelevant to the point of the entire post Goaliedad put up. Yeah, most of boarding schools are occupied by Koreans. Usually in the lesser tier ones, however, they come from a public school or a "charter" public school of sorts.</p>
<p>I know with my D's school, the move to actively recruit from Mainland China began 2 years ago, with the headmaster and others making trips. The school also has added staff that understand Chinese with a side benefit being that they started offering Chinese language in the curriculum. So perhaps the Chinese will offset any losses from the Korean full pay students at her school.</p>
<p>And while there is some turbulence in the Chinese economy, like others have said, there is a lot of savers over there and they are not nearly as leveraged as the Koreans are. </p>
<p>When all is said and done, it is a shame that some Koreans may lose access to the opportunities of a boarding school education due to the economic troubles. However, the schools must keep finding qualified full-pay students to keep operating.</p>
<p>the kids applying that are korean are mostly kids who've lived in the states for a while or kids from only the most elite families in korea.
as a korean myself, i know of LOADS of kids (rich and middle class from the states and korea) who are applying...
when it comes to education, koreans will do just about anything...
despite the economy...</p>
<p>All of the "LG or Samsung" kids I know are applying for top tier boarding schools WITH financial aid. And like 6 sophomores from my school are applying,so although the recession may have affected applications from public schools here, I know that the international school application rates probably haven't changed TOO much.</p>
<p>int'l school applicants are at a standstill, i think that perhaps it may have even risen (it's been rising steadily now for the past few years)</p>
<p>I believe a lot of students from Foreign Language Schools will stop thinking of boarding school, as well as the smaller, lesser known international schools. But with the top five or so international schools, the rate's not budging.</p>