Beyond the Credit System: A University–industry Ap Model for Stem Career Education in Korea

South Korean adolescents are among the highest achievers in international assessments, yet two in five third-year middle-school students report no desired occupation, and students in the high school credit system that became universal in 2025 choose electives by grade strategy rather than career interest. This paper assesses a bottom-up policy design—a “Korean Advanced Placement” (K-AP) program in which regional universities and local firms jointly deliver STEM career-education courses to elementary, middle and high-school students, with completion recorded in the student record—against the evidence on five models that extend college-level or work-linked learning into secondary education: U.S. Advanced Placement, dual enrollment, early college high schools, P-TECH, and the German and Swiss dual systems, alongside Korea’s own instruments. Using a comparative policy case design and six analytical dimensions derived from social cognitive career theory and the triple-helix framework, the analysis finds that the proposal’s core mechanism—university-delivered content, firm-informed specialization and sustained mentoring as a universal default—matches the models with the strongest causal evidence, whereas its credentialing and compulsory-participation features risk grade-strategic selection and perfunctory compliance that Korea’s shadow-education market and relative grading would amplify. Its extension to elementary and middle school is untested anywhere. The paper derives three design modifications, identifies existing legal and funding levers, and proposes a lottery-based regional pilot.