SEOUL, March 13 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's private education expenses hit a record high last year despite the falling number of students, statistical office data showed Thursday.

Spending on private after-school classes among primary, middle and high school students totaled 29.2 trillion won (20.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, up 7.7 percent compared to the previous year, according to Statistics Korea.

It kept a record-breaking trend for the fourth straight year. The result was based on a survey of students from some 3,000 classes.

The total number of students retreated 1.5 percent to around 5.13 million last year. The monthly average expenditure on private education per student gained 9.3 percent to 474,000 won (330 dollars).

Excluding students who did not participate in private education, the per-month private class spending advanced 7.2 percent to 592,000 won (410 dollars).

The private education participation rate mounted 1.5 percentage points over the year to 80.0 percent in 2024.

The rate for elementary school students went up 1.7 percentage points to 87.7 percent, while the figures for middle and high school students increased to 78.0 percent and 67.3 percent, respectively.

High education cost has been seen as one of the factors behind the country's ultra-low birth rate.

The country's total fertility rate, or an average number of children a woman is expected to bear in lifetime, climbed 0.03 over the year to 0.75 in 2024, marking the first rebound in nine years.

However, the rate stayed far below the replacement level of 2.1 required to maintain the current population. Enditem

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