According to data from the Education Ministry disclosed by Rep. Park Hae-ja of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, graduates from only 42.5% of 1,525 regular high schools were accepted by Seoul National University* in 2014, a sharp drop from 56.34% in 2010. In contrast only 2 elite high schools failed to send a single graduate to the nation’s top university, one from the autonomous private high schools and one from a foreign language high school.

As tuition at elite high schools costs at least three times that of regular schools concerns are rising about education inequality, and that wealthy parents can afford better education for their children is increasing. According to Statistics Korea, families whose incomes are in the top 20 percent spend about 6.5 times more money on education than those in the bottom 20 percent.

*As Seoul National University (SNU) is Korea’s top university, the number of students accepted by SNU is often described as one of the evaluation criteria.