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because their
hakwon
studies have put them way, way ahead of
the syllabus.
    PRIVATE TUTORING: THE KOREAN VICE
    Private tutoring was illegal when I lived in Korea, punishable by fines for both the tutor and the family engaging them. Sometimes students would be caught because their
fellow students ratted them out. When I was in the seventh grade, we had to fill out a questionnaire exposing our classmates. Questions included “Who is receiving private tutoring?”
“Who is smoking?” and “Who is engaging in sexual intercourse?” My teacher told us we were obligated to write down names for every single question, whether we knew any guilty
parties or not. If we left the questions blank, our own names would be inserted, he threatened.
    The government viewed private lessons as a dangerous threat to the level playing field, as wealthy families would have a major advantage in getting their kids into top universities. The ban on
private tutoring was officially lifted in the late 1990s, largely because it was impossible to enforce.
    The legalization of private tutoring has proved a disaster. Korean parents throw money fanatically at
hakwons
. A family will typically pay anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000 per month per
child for these extra after-school lessons. According to Kim Young-sun, 2.8 percent of the Korean GDP is spent on
hakwons
. To give a sense of how huge 2.8 percent is, that’s over
half of what Korea spends on its entire public K–12 education system. 4
    Some
hakwons
specialize in prepping students for the SAT exam required by U.S. universities. According to Sid Kim, who owns Wise Education, a respected and successful
hakwon
,
some SAT summer prep courses offered by “ultra-elite”
hakwons
with “star teachers” charge $20,000. Just for the summer. Just for the SATs.
    According a 2012 report on education issued by the Pearson publishing group, “The [Korean] government has become so worried about the extent of these studies that it has banned
hagwons
from being open after 10pm, but still needs to send out patrols to shut down those which mask illegal, after-hour teaching by posing as self-study libraries.” 5
    In other words, there are study-easies. Like speakeasies, but for studyholics.
    Hakwons
disrupt one of the best aspects of Korean education: its meritocracy. “In Korea you can gain upward social mobility through public school education,” Lee Dong-ho
said. And this is why private tutoring really poses a problem: it favors families with money.
    Another problem: there’s something in the air at
hakwons
that gives rise to a surreal level of cheating and corruption. “In some ways, the shadiest business in Korea is the
education business,” says Sid Kim.
    Case in point: In May 2013, the U.S. College Board canceled an SAT exam scheduled in Korea. It was the first time in the entire history of the College Board that it had canceled an exam for an
entire country. The reason: mass cheating.
    The cheating had occurred at over a dozen of Korea’s
hakwons
. The
hakwon
teachers had illegally opened the tests the day before the exam and released the questions to the
students.
    According to Sid Kim, “The going rate for buying SAT answers is $10,000.” To make the transaction look halfway legit, said Kim, the
hakwons
would claim they were offering
“special private SAT sessions” for $1,000 an hour, for a minimum of ten hours. During these sessions the
hakwon
teacher would go over “sample” questions, which were
in fact the actual questions for the real SAT exam.
    Kim’s
hakwon
was not implicated. In fact, he had already closed the SAT prep part of his business because he was being barraged by parents constantly and openly trying to bribe
him for the SAT test answers. Kim, who has a PhD in education, has decided to close Wise Education for good, despite its profitability. “I’m leaving the business at the end of the year.
Believe me, I love education, I’ve been doing it for eighteen