There are plenty of qualified Koreans who speak English better than the ones you’ve encountered.
This is a very condescending statement that is based off personal assumption rather than facts. How would you know what type of Koreans I've encountered? Do you know anything about my social economic status or who I've been hanging around in Korea?
Or that the people you know represent the tens of thousands of others who actually did well in their studies?
What arbitrary metric did you use to standardize this process of tens of thousands of others who actually did well in their studies? How are you measuring their fluency in English, how do you gauge how well they are doing in their studies? Is it by whether or not they attended SKY?
I can tell you right now that most of the SNU people I've encountered cannot speak English well enough to handle corporate level jobs in America and that getting into SKY on the grander scale, does not actually mean that you are doing well in your studies as their global reputation and ranking leave much to be desired.
Are you assuming everyone who has studied English is fluent?
Did I ever say this? Many people in Korea claim this, but it doesn't necessarily make it true.
I’ve meet a lot of Koreans who have studied English only a few years who are near native level fluent.
You've meet many Koreans who have studied English only for a few years and are native level fluent? What is your interaction with native english speakers from America? What is considered native level fluent? So you are effectively combating anecdotal evidence with even more anecdotal evidence that is less compelling.
What is Native Fluency? A homeless person can speak English natively and fluently, it doesn't mean that they are the gold standard.
I’ve also met Koreans who have studied English from kindy through college at academies who couldn’t hold a simple conversation or answer “how are you today”. Because they weren’t interested in it and had no goal or desire to actually use the language at anytime on any level.
This seems like an excuse, that is not valid. I wonder what percentage of students fall into this category vs the wealthy Korean students who are trained at a young age to attend college in America via international schools. I've met pretty solid English speakers from these select schools, but they do not represent the vast majority of Koreans.
Those Koreans who want to use English in their daily life or in their jobs are usually quite proficient. Key word is those who WANT (not have to or are forced to).
What percentage represents this btw? I'm guessing less than 75%, which probably supports my initial claim that not many speak English at a collegiate level or well enough to assume roles in corporate which are paying above 6 figures.