The Study Korea Project was launched in 2004, which is lead by the government to promote the recruitment of international students. Korean universities put in a great deal of effort and as a result the number of foreign students has grown remarkably.

However, only concerning on the expansion of numbers, the low academic achievements has lead to many social issues. Furthermore, the Ministry of Education has announced that the international students entering Korean universities should have a Test of Proficiency in Korean (hereafter referred to as ‘TOPIK’) level 3, starting from the 2011 spring semester.

Korean universites are using various methods match the ministry’s announcement while recruiting as many international students possible. However, there is a fundamental problem with this announcement by the ministry. The TOPIK level 3 is not enough for foreign students to take classes in higher education. The Ministry of Education initially announced that the international students should acquire a TOPIK level 4 but due to the numerous complaints of Korean universities lead to the downward revision of the TOPIK test level to level 3. If the minimum Korean proficiency requirements was TOPIK level 4 the recruitment size would have decreased but the academic achievements of them would have grown.

The minimum Korean language proficiency requirements is still level 3. Korean universities are aware that this level is not enough for foreign students to take classes. However, they are still recruiting them with these requirements because the international student ratio is a major evaluation index used in the university rankings. As a result the foreign students enrolling with a TOPIK level 3 have lower understanding of classes which leads to low academic achievements.
In this thesis, we accept the reality that universities have to recruit foreign students with a TOPIK level 3 and we propose a method which will strengthen their Korean language proficiency in a short period of time. Thus, we will analyze the academic ability of international students and we will also take a look at the methodologies universities have chosen to do this. We propose the a college that is exclusively for the international students which we call the ‘College of International Students’ for the international students to maintain the motivation to continuously study the Korean language. This method will improve the student’s Korean language proficiency which will eventually lead to the improvement of academic achievements.