This study has dealt with one of the most debated issues in Korea: What factors boost students'
expenditure of time and money on private tutoring? In this study, school dissatisfaction and
competition were selected as the key factors that influence the fluctuation of time and expense of
private tutoring that students have invested in from 7th grade to 10th grade were examined. For the
analysis, hierarchical growth modeling was applied to the four year data of Korean Education
Longitudinal Study. In result, the competition for entering selective schools, such as the foreign
language high school and the science high school, has significantly increased the demand for private
tutoring in terms of time and expense. The school dissatisfaction, on the other hand, didn't so much
influence the change of students' private tutoring during middle school years. It was, however,
significantly related with increase of private tutoring at the 10th grade. These results imply that
competition for entering upper schools could cause students to participate in additional private
tutoring, and suggested that a government policy for reducing private tutoring would be more
effective when it includes controls to manage students' competition for selective schools.