If Picasso was born in Korea, he would be frying chicken, an anonymous twitter user once tweeted. Not only was this the start of “what ifs’ related to Korea that satirized Koreans’ obsession with conformity, but it also pointed out Korea’s lack of support in education. Considering how Korea’s university enrollment is quite high compared to that of U.S.A, some might think Korea’s is better off than the U.S.A, education wise. After all, Korea's university graduation rate far exceeds the 39 percent rate that other OECD countries hold, as 82 percent. However, once the full overview of the Korean education system is taken into consideration, of how private academies such as Hak-wons are dominating Korean education and how the Korean government lacks financial support to gifted and poor students, Students like Carlos will be extremely rare to come across.  

 Malcolm Gladwell pointed out how in the U.S.A, gifted students like Carlos can only get an opportunity to pursue their academic interests with the assistance and connections of an adult figure. That’s when Eric, who goes around schools in the U.S.A in search for gifted students in need of financial aid and helps them attend schools with high-quality education, comes into the picture. However, because these students know how important it is for them to hold on to this single opportunity to be chosen and supported by Eric, they are often forced to hide their emotion and simply “forget” what obstacles they face. These students, as they can’t afford to miss this opportunity that will boost them up the social ladder, work extra harder with desperation. This situation the students are forced into is what Gladwell points out: if a gifted but poor student has to work extra harder and requires extra assistance to make it to university compared to a student from a wealthy family, there is something definitely wrong with the system.

 Now, what about Korea? Based on my education throughout kindergarten to middle school, financial support seems to be the defining factor that decides which school you go to, even more than talent. Gladwell provided how many students studied by themselves and obtained amazing scores in ACT and the SATs, but in Korea, where everything is so Hak-won oriented, such endeavor would be impossible. Maybe with extra hard work, the students in the U.S.A may have been able to catch up and even exceed their relatively affluent peers. However, no matter how faster and harder the students in Korea try to chase after their peers, the chances are that they will lag behind; their peers are boosted up with private education: Hak-won.

 From the beginning of elementary school, students are basically bred from Hak-wons from the beginning of elementary school day and night. 82.8 percent of elementary and middle school students whose family income were over 700 dollars a month took up private education in 2015. However, the rate of students from families whose monthly income is around 100 dollars in private education, was less than half of the former group.  When the students get private education from basic math to even Physical Education, no matter how talented or smart students like Carlos are, there are certain limits such students can follow up to. Considering how the majority of the schools let students sleep during the day through class and let them study all night at Hawk-wons, the quality of public schools won’t be much help to support the gifted students without private education either. How can students like Carlos beat the Hak-won-made-students when the Hakwon-won bred students spend tens and thousands of dollars on Hak-wons? There isn’t much infrastructure or any academic FA systems that can ensure the students have access to hak-wons either. The rate of governmental support in public education in both elementary and middle school education is only around 3.4 percent; with high schools, the rate is much lower as 0.7 percent. What little financial assistance that comes to the gifted students usually comes in the form of textbooks and extra study materials, and sometimes with after-school classes. Compared to the giant enterprise that Hak-won is today, that not only assists but recreates a student from head-to-toe, these infrastructures are no avail to students like Carlos.

 For the gifted but poor students, this is how it all starts: they can’t start out on the same line to the marathon that is “수능”, the Korean SATs, nor can they boost themselves up to the same level as their peers. The chances of them getting an extra boost up to fill the gap are highly unlikely because there isn’t someone like Eric that could support them. The gifted students, already excluded from the beginning soon come face-to-face with reality: the financial burden.

The U.S.A may be trying to disguise what unfair system they may have as the land of opportunity and liberty. However, Korea is not even trying to hide it. However, in Korea, the idea that money not only decides where you come from but where you go is deep-rooted and blatant everywhere. By the time students graduate elementary school, they aspire to be government workers- a job that is stable and attainable. Even teens joke about the “spoon hierarchy” of how the financial stability of one’s family categorizes one into certain classes. Korea’s pessimistic and cynical atmosphere on achievements in education and the job market is not an unfamiliar one. It’s been around for a long time and it’s getting worse. Not only is such atmosphere detrimental to the gifted students who aspire to move up the social ladder, the sense of loss and failure soon takes hold them. This phenomenon makes the students assert their own position on the bottom of the hierarchy and simply give up.

 Throughout my life, I have seen how such atmosphere and social consensus that money decides where you go and who you become affect brilliant students. The pattern is almost identical. The gifted students lacking educational assistance stop studying and working. Most of them start to hang out in groups, becoming the teenage gangs, the ‘ill-jins” in Korea. It’s the same old story, but the pressure that forces the gifted students to give up so easily, is the ultimate cycle that the Korean education system hasn’t been able to break free of.

 The grade gap between students is not a result of their brains but a result of money. Students like Carlos enter Korea’s education system to be pushed back to the end of the line as the Hak-wons boost the other students to the finish line. With the lack of an effective financial assistance and Korean society’s blatant reinforcement of how money decides one’s life course, the students give up. In Korea, a student like Carlos would be impossible to thrive, for even without considering the assistance of someone powerful and influential, the student will be encouraged to give up and settle for what they have in the first place.