Story preview
Min Jin Lee’s American Hagwon asks: what price an education?
About this story
- Published
- Sep 26, 2026, 4:56 AM UTC
Continue reading on the publisher site for the full article.
At a glance
Coverage
Tone
Background
Context from Wikipedia on the organisations, people and places in this story.
Hagwon
South Korean private educational institutions
Hagwon is a Korean term for a for-profit private educational institution. They are commonly likened to cram schools. Some consider hagwons as private language centers or academies operated like businesses apart from the South Korean public school system. As of 2022, 78.3% of grade school students in South Korea attend at least one and spend an average of 7.2 hours weekly in them.
More on Wikipedia ↗