South Korea's Private Tutoring Costs Fall for First Time Since 2020
South Korea’s private tutoring costs for elementary to high school students declined for the first time since 2020, according to Statistics Korea’s 2025 survey on 초중고 사교육비. The latest year recorded a drop from the previous year’s record, with total private tutoring spending at 27.5 trillion won, down 5.7% from the year that had the peak.
The average monthly private tutoring expense per student fell to 458,000 won, a 3.5% year-on-year decrease. All education levels saw smaller outlays on a per-student basis compared with the prior year. Elementary school tutoring accounted for about 12.2 trillion won, a drop of 7.9%; middle school tutoring was 7.6 trillion won (down 3.2%); and high school tutoring was 7.8 trillion won (down 4.3%).
Overall participation in private tutoring and the time spent on it also eased. The participation rate among students dropped to 75.7%, down 4.3 percentage points from the previous year, marking the first such decline in five years. Average weekly private tutoring hours edged down to 7.1 hours, a reduction of 0.4 hours.
Yet among students who continued to participate in tutoring, spending rose. The per-student monthly outlay among participants was 604,000 won, up 2.0% from the prior year and a record high for this measure. By level, elementary participants spent about 512,000 won per month, middle-school participants about 632,000 won, and high-school participants about 793,000 won.
The data also show growing income-related disparities. Households with an average monthly income of 8 million won or more reported per-child tutoring spending of around 66,200 won and an 84.9% participation rate. In contrast, households with monthly incomes below 3 million won spent about 19,200 won per child and had a 52.8% participation rate.
Government officials framed the decline as an effect of policy measures designed to reduce private tutoring, notably the expansion of Nalbeom (늘봄) after-school programs and related services at elementary schools. An Education Ministry official cited the stronger after-school and care options for younger students as a contributing factor to the drop.
But education civil groups disputing the government view argued that the measures may not have increased participation in Nalbeom as claimed. They noted that elementary-school Nalbeom and after-school program participation stayed around 36.7% and argued that the impact on private tutoring was not clearly demonstrated.
Korea’s private tutoring market is a central element of its education system and household budgeting, consuming a significant portion of family incomes and shaping labor needs in the education sector. For the United States, the results illustrate how public policy aims to shift demand from private to public after-school services, with implications for education equity, consumer spending, and potential policy spillovers as U.S. states consider similar approaches to reducing the cost burden of supplementary education. The figures also highlight how income inequality translates into access to additional tutoring and enrichment, a topic increasingly debated in U.S. education policy discussions.