The Korean government recently announced a plan to boost investment in education by lowering the threshold for foreign investors. Specifically, the government intends to create an international education hub in Songdo, international business district just outside Seoul in Incheon. In order to do so, the government will allow joint investment of foreign and domestic institutes for establishing branches of foreign schools in Songdo. According to the Incheon Free Economic Zone(IFEZ) it aims to attract 640,000 additional residents by 2020. As of the end of May, the number of residents stood at 207,188, including more than 3,000 expats. Songdo has the greatest concentration of foreign residents in the IFEZ, with 1,584.
The government hopes the new plan allows Korean students to study at much lower cost than overseas and helps reduce the deficit caused by the high proportion of university students studying abroad.