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Kim, Sunwoong
- Professor
- University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
- Department of Economics
- United States
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| Sunwoong Kim is Professor of Economics
and the Chair of the Department of Economics at
the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He also
taught at Bryn Mawr College, University of Pennsylvania,
Justus-Liebig University of Giessen (Germany), Ajou
University (Korea), and KDI School of Public Policy
and Management (Korea).
Originally from Korea, he obtained Ph.D. in Economics
and Urban Planning from MIT in 1985. He is a specialist
in applied micro economics. His current research
interests include economics of education, urban
and real estate economics, and labor economic.
Currently he works on several policy issues on
Korean labor and education.
He has published articles in well known professional
journals including American Economic Review, Journal
of Political Economy, The Review of Economics
and Statistics, Journal of Urban Economics, Journal
of Regional Science, Regional Science and Urban
Economics, Journal of Housing Economics, Journal
of Housing Research, and Social Science Quarterly.
Currently he is the Co-Editor of International
Economics Journal.
Selected Publications
- Kim, S. and Ju-Ho Lee, "Changing Facets
of Higher Education in Korea: Market Competition
and the Role of the State," 2005, Higher
Education, forthcoming
- Kim, S., "Accountability and Governance
in the U.S. Public School System in the U.S.,"
KEDI Journal of Education Policy, vol. 1, no.
1, pp. 61-83, 2004.
- Lee, Ju-Ho, S. Kim, and Seung-Bo Kim, "Ranking
and Competition among Korean Colleges and Universities,"
Economic Studies [Kyungjehak Yeonku], vol 51,
no. 2, pp. 5-36. (in Korean)
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| South Korea has experienced a spectacular
expansion of higher education during the last five
decades. In 1950, the number of students enrolled
in higher education institutions was only 11,358.
In 2002, the number is more than 3.5 million, and
the current enrollment rate for higher education
exceeds 80%. Such a large-scale expansion of the
higher education system inevitably brings about
challenges to the society. In particular, there
has been a growing tension between elitism and mass
access to higher education and the proper role of
the government.
Elitism in higher education puts excellence as
the most important objective in the higher education
system. A large amount of resources are devoted
to a small number of beneficiaries, and consequently
the quality of education for each student in the
system is generally high. In the case of elitist
public higher education system, the students are
subsidized by the government. When the elitist
higher education system is mostly financed privately,
the cost to the student has to be high, and the
high costs of attending elite universities certainly
restrict the access for a large segment of the
society. In an elitist system, a well-established
hierarchy of universities will emerge naturally,
and the coveted slots for prestigious universities
are typically allocated by a competitive admission
process. As the level of the preparation for the
admission process can vary widely across socio-economic
class of the students, such system is bound to
be less accessible to underprivileged groups.
On the other hand, the policy objective of accessibility
puts the highest priority on equal access to higher
education by all social classes. As the financial
resources are the largest impediment to most high
school graduates who seek higher education, the
increased accessibility requires more public subsidy
in order to reduce the out-of-pocket cost by students.
However, as the cost of quality higher education
is high, no country in the world has successfully
provided quality higher education to everybody
who wants to go to college. Given the fiscal constraint,
the most common compromise is to sacrifice the
quality of education and individual attention
to the students.
The research proposal intends to research this
tension in depth from political, economic, and
social perspectives. In particular, it will study
the political economy of the public policy choice
in detail. The research will include both positive
and normative dimensions. The positive dimensions
of the research will cover why certain policies
have been adopted and examine the unintended consequences
of the adopted policies. The normative dimensions
of the study explore the dynamic as well as static
trade-offs of the policy choice in the Korean
economy and society, and try to find the most
desirable public policy option in various stages
of the development. While education policy is
one of the most important issues in Korea, there
has been relatively little attempt to gain a comparative
perspective by actively engaging with experts
from other countries in Korea. The NCS program
will also provide opportunities for international
scholars to understand the Korea's past policy
choices and to contribute the formation of future
polices.
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