The guide
South Korea or Italy?
The same questions asked of both, in the same order, with what each one costs you level with what it gives you. Neither column is a recommendation — the last row is the one to read twice.
First
South Korea
Second
Italy
In one line
A full government scholarship that pays for a language year, tuition and living costs — aimed squarely at students from countries like ours.
The cheapest realistic route into Western Europe for a family without money — tuition scales to income, and regional scholarships pay you to study.
What only this place gives you
The Global Korea Scholarship covers a Korean-language year, full tuition, a monthly stipend, flights and insurance. Complete funding of this kind, open to Central Asian applicants, is close to unique.
Fees are calculated from family income (the ISEE assessment), and DSU regional scholarships cover tuition, a living grant, housing and meals for students below an income threshold — a package that exists nowhere else in Europe at this scale.
What is good here
- GKS is a genuinely complete package, including the language year that makes the rest possible.
- Electronics, automotive, battery and shipbuilding R&D at world scale, with universities plugged into it.
- Games, animation and entertainment industries that export globally and hire from local schools.
- Fast, cheap public transport, near-universal connectivity, and low street crime.
- Living costs outside central Seoul are moderate by developed-country standards.
- Income-scaled tuition plus DSU scholarships: for a modest-income family this can be the cheapest option on the entire list, cheaper than staying home.
- Medicine taught in English, entered through the IMAT exam — one of the few honest routes into European medicine for an international student.
- Design, architecture and fashion at Politecnico and the Milan schools, sitting inside the industry itself.
- EU degree, EU mobility afterwards, and a 12-month post-study residence permit to find work.
- Cost of living outside Milan is genuinely low by Western European standards.
What it costs you
- Korean is required for most degrees and nearly all jobs; the language year is necessary, not decorative.
- Working hours and hierarchy in Korean companies are demanding, and foreign employees feel it.
- Hiring is heavily seasonal and credential-bound, and social integration is slow for foreigners.
- Academic pressure is extreme and starts long before university — you are entering an environment built on it.
- Long-term residence routes exist but are narrower than Canada's or Germany's.
- Italian is essential for daily life and for most jobs; English-taught degrees do not change that once you step off campus.
- Bureaucracy is slow and document-heavy — the permesso di soggiorno process is a rite of passage, not an anecdote.
- Graduate salaries and the domestic job market are weak compared to Germany or the Netherlands; many graduates leave to work.
- DSU scholarships are administered per region with different rules, deadlines and reliability — the paperwork is the actual hurdle.
- University structures are old-fashioned: large lectures, oral exams, little pastoral support.
- Housing in Milan is expensive and competitive, closer to a northern European capital than to the rest of Italy.
Money — how paying for it works
With GKS, essentially covered. Without it, tuition is moderate and universities offer partial scholarships, but living in Seoul is not cheap.
Tuition depends on assessed family income, and can fall to nothing. Add a DSU grant and the state effectively pays you to study. The catch is entirely in the paperwork: certified, translated income documents, on time, per region.
Getting in — what they weigh
Grades, language proficiency (TOPIK for Korean-taught programmes, English tests otherwise) and, for GKS, a competitive national selection through the Korean embassy — apply through the embassy track, and start a year early.
Programme-specific: TOLC entrance tests for many degrees, IMAT for English-taught medicine, portfolio for design. Grades matter, personal essays barely exist. Compass evaluates Italian programmes deterministically, including the DSU and financial-fit picture.
After you graduate
Graduates can move to a job-seeking visa and then to work sponsorship. Language level is the practical gate, more than the paperwork. Compass models Korean admissions, including the language requirement.
A 12-month permit to look for work after graduating, and EU-wide mobility with the degree. Working in Italy itself is the harder half — the language and the market both bite.
Post-study work rules are set by politics and change. Check the rule for your own graduation year before you plan around it.
Strongest fields here
- Engineering
- Computer Science
- Arts & Design
- Business & Economics
- Natural Sciences
- Arts & Design
- Engineering
- Business & Economics
- Medicine & Health
- Humanities & Social Sciences
This suits you if…
You want a fully funded degree, you are genuinely willing to learn a hard language, and engineering, tech or the creative industries are your direction.
Money is the binding constraint, you are willing to learn Italian, and you want design, architecture, engineering or medicine.
Look elsewhere if…
You are not prepared to study Korean seriously. Without it this becomes an expensive, isolating four years.
You need high graduate earnings immediately, or you cannot handle administrative uncertainty. Both will make you miserable here.