Nearly 80 percent of high school graduates enter college in Korea. Even if this proportion -- the highest in the world -- remains unchanged in the coming years, universities and colleges across the country will have increasing difficulty filling their rolls.

Due to a low birthrate, the number of high school graduates is forecast to decrease from 630,000 in 2013 to 400,000 in 2023 -- far below this year’s combined enrollment of universities and colleges at 560,000.

This projection has raised the urgent need to cut the number of university places. It was against this backdrop that President Park Geun-hye’s government pledged in 2013 to reduce enrollment by 160,000 in a gradual manner until 2022.

As the first step toward achieving this goal, the Education Ministry this week announced the results of its evaluation of restructuring efforts by 163 four-year universities and 135 two-year colleges.

The ministry will suspend all sorts of financial support for 13 of the 298 schools, which received the lowest grade. They will also be asked to cut their enrollment by up to 15 percent over the next two years. Other universities and colleges -- except for the 51 best-performing schools -- will also be advised to reduce the number of entrants by at least 4 percent during the same period. Financial support for them will be reduced or stopped if they fail to meet the targeted figures.

There is a limit, however, in pushing universities and colleges to curtail the number of entrants just by using financial support as a tool. It is also unreasonable for the government to set the rates at which schools must cut enrollment without giving full consideration to their different competitiveness. A more desirable way may be to abolish or merge substandard institutions while qualified universities and colleges are allowed to decide on their enrollment autonomously.

With regard to this, lawmakers are urged to quickly pass a bill aimed at making it easier to close schools and authorizing the Education Ministry to enforce a cut in enrollment in certain cases. They should place the urgent need to improve the country’s educational competitiveness ahead of political interests.

Universities and colleges should also recognize that their survival could be ensured by striving to provide students with more practical and useful education to better prepare them for the global and digital era.