The Autonomy of Private University in South Korea:
Focusing on the Policy to University in Financial Difficulties
In South Korea, the management of private university becomes a critical issue because of competition for acquiring students due to the declining birthrate and the influence of the deregulation policy in post-1990. Under the severe situation, the government accomplishes a drastic reform of private university. The one is the establishment of closing procedure of private university and the other one is the carrying out the extensive audit by the national audit office. In order to make an improvement of financial management of university and on the other hand, in order to find and withdrawal the very poor-managed universities, recently the government adopt strengthened policies.
In Japan, the management environment of private university is quite similar but Japanese private universities guarantee the more autonomy compare to Korean private university. The difference of the subsidy system makes an impact of the difference of autonomy of private university in both countries. And as compared to Korean policies, Japanese government needs to explore the intervention system in the case the private university in very serious financial trouble.