SEOUL, March 12 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's private education expenses turned downward last year amid the falling number of students, statistical ministry data showed Thursday.
Spending on private after-school classes among primary, middle and high school students totaled 27.5 trillion won (18.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025, down 5.7 percent from a year ago, according to the Ministry of Data and Statistics.
It marked the first fall in five years after breaking records for the past four years. The result was based on a survey of students from some 3,000 classes across the country.
The total number of students retreated 2.3 percent to around 5.02 million last year. The monthly average expenditure on private education per student declined 3.5 percent to 458,000 won (310 dollars).
Excluding students who did not participate in private education, the per-month private class spending increased 2.0 percent to 604,000 won (410 dollars).
The private education participation rate slipped 4.3 percentage points over the year to 75.7 percent in 2025.
The rate for elementary school students dipped 3.3 percentage points to 84.4 percent, while the figures for middle and high school students decreased in single digits to 73.0 percent and 63.0 percent, respectively.
High education cost has been seen as one of the factors behind the country's ultra-low birth rate.
The country's total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman is expected to bear in a lifetime, climbed 0.05 over the year to 0.80 in 2025, hitting the highest in four years.
However, the rate stayed far below the replacement level of 2.1 required to maintain a stable population. ■