Korea's Foreign Caregiver Training University Program: D-2 to E-7 Through Elder Care

6 min read

Poster for Soo House's Career in Korea workshop, a job-search session for foreign residents led by an HR and recruiting coach

Korea is short 116,734 trained caregivers by 2028, according to a Health Insurance Research Institute report released through the National Assembly's Health and Welfare Committee in March 2025 — and the Ministry of Health and Welfare has separately projected the country will need 990,000 more by 2043, as the population over 65 keeps climbing. In response, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare picked 24 universities in August 2025 to run a new kind of program: a degree track built specifically for international students, ending in a licensed caregiver certificate and, for the first time, a defined pilot bridge from a student visa to a work one.

If you're on a D-2 visa in Korea — or know someone who is — this is worth understanding carefully, both for what it offers and for what's still unproven about it.

  • 24 → 21Universities originally selected; operating as of mid-2026
  • 13Metropolitan and provincial governments that nominated candidate universities
  • 2026–2027Length of the pilot before a permanent-status decision

What the program actually is

"외국인 요양보호사 양성대학" — the foreign caregiver training university program — isn't a new visa category. It's a government-designated degree track, run inside an existing international-student department, that bundles three things together: Korean-language instruction aimed at care work, the 320-hour/24-credit curriculum required for Korea's national caregiver exam, and administrative benefits tied to the student's visa status while they're enrolled.

A university only qualifies if a province or metro city nominates it, a joint Ministry of Justice–Ministry of Health and Welfare panel approves it, and it separately holds a "요양보호사교육기관" (caregiver education institution) designation under the Elderly Welfare Act. That last requirement matters: it means the caregiver-specific license sits on top of the university's general international-student program, not inside it automatically.

The pilot pathway: a D-2 study visa holder completes the 320-hour caregiver curriculum at a designated training university, passes the national caregiver exam, takes a job at an elder-care facility, and can then apply for a pilot conversion to an E-7 specific-activity work visa — though the Ministry of Justice says the E-7 screening criteria are still being finalized D-2 study visa Enrolled in the program 320-hr training + national exam Job at a care facility E-7 pilot conversion The last step is a "pilot" for a reason: as of this writing, the Ministry of Justice has not published the specific E-7 screening criteria for caregiver-track graduates — a license and a job offer start the process, but they are not yet a guaranteed approval.
Training at a university without the 요양보호사교육기관 designation doesn't count — you'd finish the coursework with no path to the national exam.

Why the government built this now

Korea's long-term care system is running into a staffing wall at the same time its over-65 population is accelerating. The pay is part of why: a 2024 report on the field put average caregiver earnings at roughly ₩2.06 million a month, low enough that domestic recruitment has lagged for years even as demand climbs with every facility that opens.

The response — training international students who are already here on study visas, rather than recruiting caregivers from abroad from scratch — gives universities with international-student departments a reason to open a track that leads somewhere concrete, gives the government a domestically-trained (if foreign-national) workforce, and gives students something increasingly rare for a degree: a stated, if unfinished, route to a work visa at the end of it. Enrolled students also get relaxed financial-proof requirements for their D-2 visa and priority consideration if their university runs a Korean Immigration and Integration Program (사회통합프로그램) university-linked track — real, if modest, administrative perks on top of the certification itself.

Before this program

An international student interested in elder care had no dedicated route: general Korean-language coursework, a caregiver certificate obtained separately if at all, and no stated bridge from D-2 to a work visa in this field specifically.

Under the pilot (2026–2027)

A designated university bundles the caregiver curriculum into the degree itself, the visa carries relaxed financial-proof terms while enrolled, and graduates who get hired at a care facility can apply for the E-7 pilot conversion — though the approval criteria for that last step are still being written.

The part that's still being worked out

The program didn't launch without pushback. In June 2026, the investigative outlet Hankyoreh21 published a report alleging students were being recruited into the program with visa incentives and then left with little real support once they reached their caregiving placements. The Ministry of Justice issued a formal explanatory response on June 29, 2026, confirming several operational details in the process of defending the program: 21 of the 24 originally selected universities were actively running the track, the first cohort had been admitted in March 2026, and the ministry was surveying 505 enrolled students across those 21 schools — on how they'd found out about the program, whether they'd paid study-abroad agency fees to enroll, and what they'd actually been told before signing up.

A designated university isn't a guarantee of quality The ministry's own response promises a standard information guidebook — covering what the job actually involves, the real visa benefits, and how the program works — that universities will be required to hand out during recruitment, because that apparently wasn't happening consistently. If you're considering this track, ask the university directly for its 요양보호사교육기관 designation and its self-evaluation results (institutions must file one every semester) before enrolling, rather than taking a recruiter's pitch at face value.

What we see at Soo House

Soo House runs job-search workshops, classes and community meetups for foreign residents across Korea, including "Find Strength: Career in Korea" — a session led by an HR and recruiting coach for members weighing their next move. This exact program comes up there more than you'd expect, usually from a student on a D-2 visa asking some version of "is this actually a real path, or just a visa trick" — which, going by the Hankyoreh21 report and the ministry's own response, is a fair question to ask about a two-year pilot where even the government admits the final screening step isn't fully defined yet. Our coach's standing advice at those sessions: a real path and an unfinished one aren't mutually exclusive, so verify the specific university's paperwork and talk to a currently enrolled student before you commit a visa change to it.

For an expat weighing study-to-work routes more broadly, this sits alongside Korea's other new student-to-E-7 tracks as one more option worth comparing on its own terms, not instead of them.

Your next hop: if you're already on a D-2 and curious, start with Hi Korea or your target university's international office — ask specifically whether that school holds a current 요양보호사교육기관 designation, and ask to see its most recent self-evaluation before enrolling in the track.

Checked in October 2026 against the Ministry of Justice's June 29, 2026 explanatory release on the program (also mirrored on immigration.go.kr), covering the 21-of-24 operating universities, the March 2026 first cohort, and the 505-student survey; the August 2025 selection announcement as reported by Dong-A Daily/dhnews.co.kr on Honam University's selection and Kyunggi Ilbo; the D-2-to-E-7 pilot mechanics as reported by Daum/news coverage dated April 20, 2026; the 2028 shortage figure from a Health Insurance Research Institute report released through Rep. Seo Young-seok's office, as reported by Money Today, March 2025; and the 2043 Ministry of Health and Welfare projection and average caregiver pay as reported by SBS Biz and Money Today's caregiver-wage reporting. The E-7 screening criteria for this track were not yet published at the time of writing — confirm current status through Hi Korea (hikorea.go.kr) or your target university before enrolling. For the broader landscape of student-to-work options, see Korea's 2026 plan for new student-to-work tracks and the metropolitan visa program.

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