How Competitive Are Regional Universities in Developing Talent? The Current Picture and Policy Directions

A shrinking school-age population and the preference for universities in the Seoul Capital Area (SCA) are together rapidly weakening the ability of regional universities to fill their places and the foundations for developing local talent. The study warns that this could set off a vicious cycle in which a shrinking talent pool weakens industrial competitiveness and reduces jobs, job losses drive people out of the regions, and population outflow further erodes the competitiveness of regional universities. Workforce development outcomes also vary among regional universities. Until fairly recently, flagship national universities achieved outcomes broadly similar to those of SCA universities and had accumulated foundations for teaching and research. Recently, however, signs of weakening competitiveness have emerged, including declining admission competition ratios and employer reputation, which call for a preemptive response before those foundations erode further. Completing the hub development strategy of balanced development policy depends above all on building a system, centered on flagship national universities, that develops talent in the regions to meet the needs of growth industries and keeps that talent there. Each region’s flagship national university should be developed into a core hub for talent development, research and development, and industry-academia collaboration, and should spread its results across the wider region through links with non-flagship universities, firms, and research institutes. Support for regional universities, likewise, needs to move away from scattered support for individual institutions toward a system that extends the capabilities of flagship national universities across the wider region. Existing university support programs and R&D programs should also be linked and reorganized to fit talent development systems for each wider region, centered on flagship national universities, and tied to the workforce needs of each region’s growth industries.