HANKYOREH | Why S. Korea's rich spend a fortune to guarantee their kids' admission to top schools overseas

So far, the Hankyoreh has taken a tour of the supply chain behind the global "application qualification" industry, with stops in San Jose, Gangnam, Kenya, and Pakistan. It includes US college entrance consulting with hefty price tags; South Korea's international schools, where tuition alone can reach 45 million won a year (in the case of the high school curriculum at the Chadwick International school in Incheon); and ghostwriting of academic papers by educated people in low-income countries.
Student parents are pouring huge sums of money all through the global chain. It's an industry precariously positioned on the borders of legality; the principles of "scholarship" are thrown out the window.
As we reach the end of this uncomfortable journey, there is still one question to be answered: what kind of demand has given rise to such a skewed industry? What are the forces that have turned the "qualification industry" into such a juggernaut?
The focus of the desires, the envy, and the frustration is status in a global elite defined by diplomas from top US universities. We listened to experts and looked at the statistics and research to find what sort of meaning the "global elite" holds in the South Korean society of 2022. ...