Analysis of News Articles on the 2028 University Admission System Using Text Mining

This study aims to analyze the major issues and social responses following the announcement of the 2028 university admission system reform. To this end, 812 news articles reported in major Korean media outlets were collected, and the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method, a text mining technique, was applied to identify key issues. The analysis revealed eight topics: ① the expansion of student records reflected in admissions and CSAT processes, ② the need for policy changes toward essay-type and descriptive assessments in line with future education, ③ the introduction of relative grading in elective subjects for career and interdisciplinary studies, raising concerns about inconsistency with the high school credit system, ④ perceived advantages in GPA and CSAT performance leading to a stronger preference for special-purpose high schools, autonomous private high schools, and prestigious school districts, ⑤ the National Education Commission’s recommendation to exclude advanced mathematics from the CSAT and to apply absolute grading to selected social science subjects, ⑥ controversy over the disclosure of integrated social studies and science questions, provoking concerns about increased private education and the undermining of the high school credit system, ⑦ debate over the reduction of mathematics coverage in the CSAT, with concerns about weakened competitiveness in STEM fields contrasted with expectations for reduced private education, and ⑧ changes in the GPA system that may accelerate the concentration of students in natural science tracks. These findings highlight two key implications: first, concerns about the practical effects and ripple impacts of the reform, and second, the issue of alignment between future education goals and the assessment system. This study employs a data-driven analytical approach to minimize subjective interpretation and provides empirical evidence for evaluating the social acceptance and policy validity of the university admission reform, thereby contributing to academic research.