Incheon Global Campus in South Korea is emerging as a leading global education hub in Northeast Asia, providing education to foster the next generation of global leaders in various sectors.

A project led by the central government and Incheon Metropolitan City, the educational complex has the campuses of five universities ranking in the top 100 in the global university index. 


National and local governments have invested about 1 trillion won ($918 million) in the IGC, aiming to host 10 prestigious universities there. They envision the IGC, located in the Incheon Free Economic Zone, as a regional educational hub where about 10,000 students study at modern, state-of-the-art facilities.

At the project’s launch in 2007, the State University of New York Korea became the first university to open a campus at IGC in 2012. George Mason University Korea opened two years later, followed by the University of Utah Asia Campus and Ghent University Global Campus in September that year.

The IGC welcomed a new educational institute in September, the Fashion Institute of Technology, one of the top five colleges in the world specializing in fashion design and business management.

Graduation assessment and overall educational management is done by the schools’ main campus in their respective home countries. This is designed to allow students to acquire degrees from renowned world universities while still studying inside South Korea at a much more affordable cost.

Each class at the IGC universities is taught in English. Students come from both Korea and abroad and are exposed to a global learning atmosphere, presenting the opportunity for students to build networks of people with different cultural backgrounds while receiving a high-quality education.

SUNY Korea, which produced the first graduates among the universities here in January this year, held its third graduation ceremony Thursday, and now has the largest number of graduates, with 108.

The education offered at IGC helps students pursue their dream careers. The graduates have landed jobs at global companies including Korean Air, LG Electronics in Iran, Facebook Singapore and Genesem, a semiconductor company in Songdo International City.

The first graduation ceremony will be held for George Mason University Korea on Saturday. The 12 students are already off to a good start, getting jobs at multinational corporations such as accountings firm KPMG. University President Angel Cabrera will deliver the graduation certificates. After the ceremony, a homecoming event will be held to invite all alumni of the university who reside and work in Korea.

The University of Utah Asia Campus had its first graduation in the main campus in Utah in the United States in May. Fourteen of the 17 graduates attended, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees. To celebrate the next graduation event, which will be the first held at IGC, President David W. Pershing from the main campus will visit the country in March.

Ghent University Global Campus expects its first graduation in 2018.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)