Megastudy's Academic Star Power

Business Week reports:

Song Ji Won is happy that she doesn't have to cut short her art classes and rush to cram school when dusk falls. That's what the 18-year-old South Korean did last year. This year, she chose an online school for cramming so she could spend more time improving her drawing. "By using the Internet, you can choose from tons of lectures by star teachers," says Song. "You don't have to sit in traffic and you can repeatedly watch certain portions to better understand difficult issues."


Song is one of hundreds of thousands of Korean students buying video-on-demand lectures offered by cramming schools. One online site, Megastudy.net, run by a celebrity cramming-school instructor, has become so popular that it has evolved into one of the most popular companies on Korea's tech-rich bourse, Kosdaq. Listed in December, 2004, Megastudy's share price has soared to $74, almost quadruple the initial public offering price of $19.

The price of the education could drop.No word yet from the NEA on the dangers of "unsupervised education".