One 'bapyak' Costs 50,000 Won... College Students Losing Tutoring Jobs Struggle to Make Ends Meet

College Tutoring Market Cools as School-Age Population Shrinks and AI Gains Ground
Surging Dining-Out Costs Add Pressure... More Students Turn to 1,000-Won Breakfasts
Even Dog-Walking Gigs Draw Long Lines... Competition Hits "100 to 1"

Seol Minji, 19, a 2025 entrant at Korea University, started college full of excitement, but these days her first concern is how to cover living expenses. She posted an ad seeking students on a tutoring-matching platform to earn pocket money, but hardly anyone contacted her. “Since the semester began, a single meal out with classmates costs well over KRW 20,000,” she said. “Living on my own, if I can’t find a part-time job, even paying for my meals each day is a burden.”

The tutoring market, once considered one of the most lucrative part-time jobs for university students, is shrinking rapidly. The downturn comes amid a declining school-age population, greater use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for learning, and a shift toward large private academies in the private education market.

According to the “2025 Survey of Private Education Expenditures for Elementary, Middle and High School Students,” released by the Ministry of Data and Statistics on October 23, the participation rate in private tutoring for general subjects fell from 8.3% in 2024 to 6.9% in 2025, a drop of 1.4 percentage points. The average monthly spending on one-on-one tutoring per student also declined 14.7%, from KRW 37,000 to KRW 31,000. Ministry of the Interior and Safety population data show that the school-age population, defined as those aged 6 to 17, fell by about 18% over the 10 years from approximately 6.222 million in 2015 to around 5.11 million in 2025.

As competition for college admission intensifies, parents are favoring large academies that specialize in admissions strategies and professional instructors. The arrival of new learning aids, including generative AI, has further narrowed the opportunities available to university student tutors.

While students’ earnings have fallen, soaring restaurant prices have intensified the financial pressure in their daily lives. With the average price of a signature dish at restaurants near major Seoul universities now exceeding KRW 10,000, even the traditional campus custom of “bap-yak,” in which seniors treat juniors to a meal, has become a burden. Na, 24, a student at Sungshin Women's University, said, “Since becoming a sophomore, I’ve started treating younger students to meals, and each bap-yak costs at least KRW 50,000. It’s hard to suggest going to a cheaper restaurant, so when I eat alone, I sometimes take a long detour to get a KRW 1,000 breakfast at the student cafeteria, or have nothing but a protein shake.”

More university students are also taking on short-term jobs and small side gigs early on to earn living expenses, juggling multiple jobs. But with lucrative part-time work such as tutoring becoming scarce, competition for alternative jobs has surged, making those positions harder to get as well. Choi Hwiin, 23, a student at Ewha Womans University, was stunned by the fierce competition when she recently tried to find a dog-walking job through a local community app. “I saw more than 100 application chats come in within moments, even for a simple short-term job posting,” she said. “Even jobs that pay around the minimum wage, or short-term dog-walking gigs, attract fierce competition.”

More students are turning to unusual side gigs that pay relatively little. They search for odd jobs, such as solving a single question on a college entrance exam prep app for KRW 700 to KRW 1,400, writing course reviews or solving problems for online lecture sites such as Megastudy, and earning money by creating AI-generated short-form videos. Lee Minje, 19, a student in Seoul National University's School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, said, “I solve math problems whenever I have a spare moment to earn about KRW 10,000 a day and put it toward living expenses, while also working part-time at an academy.”

With uncertain incomes compounded by high prices, university students’ debt risks have reached alarming levels. According to the Korea Student Aid Foundation, the total amount of living-expense loans taken out by university students surged 32.8% in two years, from KRW 640.67 billion in 2023 to KRW 850.6 billion in 2025. The number of young people unable to repay their loans has also risen: over the same period, the number of borrowers behind on general living-expense loans increased 29.8%, from 6,241 to 8,101, while the outstanding overdue balance grew from KRW 29.52 billion to KRW 38.69 billion.

Experts say that as even the part-time job market, a major source of income for university students, contracts amid high prices, young people are being pushed into poverty as they struggle to make ends meet. Cho Sangsik, a professor in the Department of Education at Dongguk University, said, “We need to identify jobs that match students’ majors and aptitudes so they can balance their studies with their livelihoods, and put in place practical support measures to ease their living-expense burden.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.